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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A GRATEFUL SPIRIT 



AND OTHER 



SERMONS 



n 



James Vila Blake 



J 





CHICAGO 

Charles H. Kerr & Co. 

1890 






THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright by 

James Vila Blake. 

1890. 



PEEFACE. 

These Sermons are published because they were asked for. 
Neither have I chosen the discourses. I have printed those 
desired by the people. If the request for them mean that the 
Sermons may give help, strength, cheer, comfort, anywhere, I 
am glad and thankful. 

J. V. B. 
Chicago, August, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



A Grateful^ Spirit, . . 
At Peace with Things, 
Yah weh in the Bible, 
Some Things to be Sun 
Solomon and the Lilies, 
The Perfect, 
Abiding God's Time, 
The Full Bushel, 
The Riches of Life, 
Take my Yoke, 
Paul's Three Points, 
Knowledge of God, 
Why any Religion, 
The One Religion, 
Faithfulness, 
"0 God!" 
A " Cure All," 
Jesus of Nazareth, 
Sacrifice, 
Old Age, 



of. 



Page. 
1 

11 

23 

37 

47 

57 

69 

79 

89 

125 

135 

153 

165 

173 

185 

197 

211 

221 

265 

277 



Cfyts Book is 3uscrtbeb to 

HAZEN J. BURTON, 

3t being tTfyree=folb fyts, — 
By ^rtcnbsfyip, 

By my Ctbmtratton, 

By fyis postering ^anb. 



ERRATA, 



Page 20. In the twentieth line, for faithfulness read 
faithlessness. 

Page 52. For Milton read Thomson. Milton has the 
thought, P. L. 713; hut the words are Thomson's, Autumn, 204. 

Page 119. In the twelfth line, for he lot read helot. 

Page 203. In the twenty-first line, for feeling read feelings. 

Page 286. In the thirtieth line, for Fumers read Furness. 



A GRATEFUL SPIRIT. 



" O, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good." 

— Psalm cxviii, X. 

It is my purpose to offer you some thoughts about grateful- 
ness ; for this virtue always is in place, pressing on a right heart, 
and therefore thoughts about it always useful, I hope. What I 
have to say flows from this one truth, that I find gratefulness 
to be an instance under the universal law of repayment or jus- 
tice. It has been called, very finely I think, " the justice of the 
heart." 

It is according to nature that we should pay for whatever 
is of so much value that we wish it. In many different ways this 
payment is exacted ; and whether it is levied by man or nature, 
it is not to be escaped. 

Very often we pay the cost to men, and as it seems perhaps 
on the surface, the whole cost, as when we buy any article of use 
or beauty. But very often we pay the whole cost to nature ; 
which is to say, we are obliged to satisfy nature's conditions be- 
fore we can attain the object, as when we dig in a mine for 
wealth or learn hard sciences by the labors of observation and 
reflection. More often still, we pay both men and nature, as 
when we acquire skill in any art, pictorial, plastic, musical, 
mechanical, paying the teacher with money, but satisfying 
nature with application. In either case it is a payment by 
matter, I mean by giving so much of substance or material for 
what we wish ; for whether we pay the teacher with valuable 
materials, or satisfy nature with the consumption of muscle and 
brain, it is the same fact ; a material payment is made. More- 
over, beforehand we paid muscle and brain for the values in 
property which we pay to the teacher ; so that in the end, in 
whatever case, we pay by consuming ourselves, by using up our 



A GRATEFUL SPIRIT. 



bodies for what we wish. In the words of Jesus, " virtue goes 
out from " us, and we pay of our very bodies, either to fix them 
in capital values, or to purchase the immortal values of the 
mind. And what a thought! what a thought this is (just to 
touch it in passing, for I cannot pause on it), that by this ma- 
terial payment, by simply paying off bits from our unfixed and 
ebbing substance, we buy the spiritual and the everlasting. 

But now, while always we must pay for what we get, it 
often appears that there is no equivalent material at hand 
wherewith to pay, none at hand I say, and none to be found. 
This is because the benefits we receive are beyond all price. 
There are costly things that transcend payment, life, liberty, 
love, a sacrifice for friendship, a gentle word of warning just in 
time,' a helping hand just at the right instant, an inspiring 
example, a forbearing charity, sometimes just a sympathetic 
understanding of us. What shall we do with these things, 
which it seems we cannot pay for? Justice then arrives, as I 
figure it, at a bar, at a high gate, at its limits or boundery; and 
there it must stay if it have no higher thought of itself than the 
material payment which I have spoken of. But if it have a 
higher thought, then it takes a leap over into love. Love repays 
with itself, that is to say with gratefulness. And this is a pay- 
ment that satisfies the equation. On the one side appears a 
benefit past all commercial valuation, on the other side, an ines- 
timable return. 

Now if we have a grateful spirit, and labor and yearn 
above all things to do first the justice of payment, and then that 
which is so heavenly and far beyond what we mean by justice, 
then to speak our thanksgiving is this gratitude put into form. 
We embody it, which is the same thing as to make it 
lovely in appearance to other persons. This expression is the 
beauty of it, its music, its oration, its poem; — the beauty of 
gratefulness, as appears when it fills a face or an attitude with 
grace, or an eye with unshed but most visible tears. The music 
of it, when it attunes the voice to a gentle and sweet tone. The 
oration of it, when it makes the dumb eloquent, as I have heard 
it. And the poem of it, when it breaks forth into hymns and 
praise, with rapture. There is naught chat exceeds the simple 
and glorious eloquence which sometimes leaps like the morning 



A GRATEFUL SPIRIT. 3 

light from pure gratefulness of feeling. A friend wrote me once, 
very early in the morning, " A lovely morning this, so crisp and 
bright. At my window is a poplar tree whose green rustling 
leaves are a great pleasure to me. If I were lonely, they would 
talk. But I have no time for loneliness. What a blessing, 
after all, lies in this constant business." This is the simple 
eloquence (and how beautiful!) of a grateful heart. 

In a word, plainly, this speaking is gratefulness manifested 
by word and sign, and gratefulness is but a continuation of 
justice, as I have said, being but spiritual payment for a benefit 
too great or too sacred for material remuneration. Well now, 
follow a little this idea of gratefulness as justice, "the justice of 
the heart." For when did ever justice lead estray ? We speak 
of Justice as the " Blind Goddess ; " but when did not even the 
blind follow the blind goddess safely, as if the blaze of noon-day 
had somehow struck from within on the eyes closed outwardly ! 

It will appear that the benefit which calls forth gratitude, 
if we look at it, must be a just benefit. No sentiment worthy of 
this good name of gratefulness can arise for a boon to our- 
selves which is an injustice or an evil to others. We could not 
be thankful, for example, to one who should aid us with stolen 
goods ; for if he told us they were stolen, he would but make 
us party to the crime ; and if he told us not, then it would be 
but a treachery to us, which we could not give thanks for when 
we learned it. Attention, favor, honor, no matter what, anything, 
at the expense of another's righteous dues, or sensitive feelings 
even, can create no gratefulness. One who accepted these things 
or thought them advantageous, still would be unable to profane 
with them the shiine of a grateful spirit; for this spirit flames 
forth to meet only the just, the noble, the pure deed. In fine, 
there is no way of being truly grateful for anything we ought 
not to have. I suspect the philosophy of this truth may be 
a deep-seated instinct, belonging to the sociable nature of man, 
namely, that an apparent benefit to ourselves, which is an injus- 
tice to another, cannot really be a benefit, or even an advantage, 
and therefore calls for no gratefulness. That can never be good 
for one which is bad for another. The human family, ay, and all 
beings, are a unit in circumstance, bound all together by "the 
chain of things, which the next unto the farthest brings," to such 



4 A GKATEFUL SPIRIT. 

effect that none can be helped at another's cost or hurt. There 
is, in truth, a kind of impregnable oneness in humanity, — 
I call it impregnable because if we look at it it rises as a rampart 
before human society, fronting all the hosts of darkness, — the 
oneness that we are all members one of another, and that if one 
part suffer another suffers with it, as Paul said long ago, and 
that no human creature, or other creature with purpose in his 
acts or with power to feel, can be grown up to blessedness, or 
can be content and happy in the very smile of God, if therefrom 
be banished any one, the least or the worst. You know the 
old doctrine, that the beatific life in heaven will be the happier 
for hell, and the blest will give thanks for their salvation the 
more devoutly in view of the terrors which they escape. That 
doctrine is so monstrous a fact as hardly to be conceived, if 
history testified not to it so plainly. Strange, that any human 
creature could delight to imagine himself as a greedy buzzard, 
feeding on the body of another's woe, Now, it is in my doctrine 
of gratefulness that no creature but a monster could utter or feel 
a thanksgiving for himself in heaven, if once he entered there, — 
I can imagine he might think he could, in an unheavenly state 
of mind, before he attained the blessed realm ; but once there 
he could not, — so long as there were a corner of hell left burning. 
Bather, like Whittier's Piero Lucca, one would say, " the world 
of pain were better, if therein one's heart might still be human, 
and desires of natural pity drop upon its fires some cooling 
tears." 

So far then we go, following the idea of gratitude as jus- 
tice ; to this point, that there can be no gratefulness for an in- 
justice or for any unfair advantage given, nay, nor even for any 
pain that we escape if thereby another feel it ; that nothing 
unfair or unjust can be really a benefit ; that an apparent privi- 
lege or advantage can be naught but a delusion, a snare and a 
fraud if it involve injustice to any one. Now, it is wonderful 
how clear all the ways of life and all the questions of men's deeds 
appear before this principle. Let a man but be filled with the 
thought of human oneness, so that he feels as quick in his 
heart a breach of this unity by any injustice, and detects it as 
instantly, as he would the violation of the organic oneness of his 
own body if it were torn, and in such a man you shall find eyes 



A GEATEITX SPIRIT. 

wonderfully clear in sight, so that pretense and all false reason- 
ings are pierced as with lances, and slain. All about us we hear 
Pilate's question, '-'What is truth?" There is another very deep 
question, and that is, ''Who shall answer that question? " — I 
mean the question of Pilate. Not the selfish man ; not he who 
receives aught without loving gratefulness ; not the hermit, whose 
abode is dark caves of personal and sordid schemes ; not the vain, 
the giddy, the careless; not the ambitious, the proud, vain and 
happy in their ambitions merely. In questions of the higher 
reason, it is more important what we art than with what skill or 
genius we think. Wherefore, I am never tired of saying that it 
is not the finely endowed, the talented, the strong, who shall see 
life as it is, but they who are round, like life, and deep and broad 
and sound. While the wrangle grows loud, and truth is said to 
be this or that, and arguments thicken that it lies here, lies 
there, in this motive, in this fact, or that equivocation or accom- 
modation are in league with truth, or that silence always is right, 
no matter what the appearance be, or that one may deceive in 
love and war, and many debates to such-like purpose, flying 
like vampire bats around a cause that lies bleeding, — while this 
wrangling goes on, there comes a wise man of the ancients say- 
ing, " To speak the truth is to say what contains not the least 
harm to any one.'' Then how the air clears, how the fogs fly! 
Oh, what a definition that is! A saying comparable for spirit- 
ual insight to that of Jesus, " By this ye shall know that ye are 
my disciples, if ye have love one for another." Both these say- 
ings reach down to the unity of humanity, by which it exists as 
one body of many parts in vital union, so that nothing which is 
an injury to the least can be a truth or honor, or a privilege or 
an advantage, or aught but a pain, to the highest or the greatest 

0! friends, what wondrous fibres these are that are spun 
back and forth between us! I heard a good man and a poet 
say once that he could not conceive how he talked back and 
forth with any human fellow, except through God. What in- 
finite length of web, invisible and dim, binds us all together! 

What is the ruystery of this spiritual coordination, tins 
connection, by which all live or all die in one act, in one instant, 
through waves of force that go from soul to soul in circles and 
spread forever, these Hues of influence that play all through 



O A GRATEFUL SPIRIT. 

society like common nerves by which the pain or pleasure, the 
vice or virtue of each adds its quantum to the common weal or 
woe which all do feel, these ineffable wonders, — what is this 
but the image, I would rather say the body, of that Supreme 
Unity on which u the many" rest? All our issues are received 
into the bosom of God. Jesus says that the supreme mercy 
rains alike on the evil and the good, makes those gracious drops 
to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Ay; but 
those drops first ascended from the earth, they are our issues 
received into His bosom; and they come back as they went 
forth, from all of us, upon all of us, on the just and the unjust, — 
the combined drop which both the bad and the good here dis- 
tilled and evaporated forth; and both must receive it again. 
Often I look at a little child with awe, to think how at those 
little feet, — so little, so helpless, so dear, — at those little feeble 
feet, a city, a continent, a world, focuses its rays. On the little 
head rain such hot vibrations and cool ones, such light rays, 
such dark ones. And alas! what part of them from me? 
"Where go my words, my looks, nay, my very thoughts, desires, 
hopes, and whatever may be most hidden, which make motions 
in the brain that must fall somewhere, and start tides of waves 
to prattle or dash on a human body and soul? Oh bless, bless 
the good things that go on their way from us, as often they 
do, — God be thanked! — soft as angels' wings who guide to will 
and to do! Blessed be the gratefulness, the loves, the unselfish 
sacrifices, the innocences and heroisms, that float like clouds in 
heaven and descend on babies' heads like summer rain, first lifted 
up from us! 

From all this, again, I gather, as to the objects or causes 
of gratefulness, that we must not give thanks by comparison. 
That is a sad and mean selfishness, and unfeelingness. It is 
not well to give thanks that we are not as others are, in danger, 
or in want, or in pain. The Pharisee's thanksgiving, "Lord I 
thank thee that I am not as other men are," seems to be con- 
demned by the common agreement of mankind, as well as by 
the gentle Jesus. But if it be hardhearted or vulgar to feel 
spiritual exultation, to give thanks for greater virtue or piety 
or knowledge than falls to another's lot, is it any better, tell me, 
to be thankful that we excell a neighbor in goods, possessions, 



a "-:-' AiZT 



honor, house, lands, weal:!, strength, power, pleasures, com- 



forts? Let u 



roniplacent hy comparison. I have read 
rhere, --I am sad when I find myself 
la not that good? Truly, we ought 
all to understand the feeling of shame over triumph. I know 
not always how I >.h feel, hut how I ought I know; and if I were 
conscious of a gulf or difference between me and any other, I 
know it ought to be less painful to me to be on the humble side 
: : it; for it is inspiring to look up, but it is torture to look down. 
It a great thing to gaze, far up the height, on some perfect 
saintliness above. How glorious it seems, how above all reach ! 

but why? Because it is the law of that very heigh. :: 
that character that stands thereon, that by a mirage in that high 
atmosphere, I, poor and imperfect, am lifted to that cloud-land, 
and the saint sees iae only on the level of h:^ tt~. 

Charles Sumner said he knew no other rule of right for a 
good nation, than that which is binding on a good man. He 
struck in that saying the key-note of morality, the key in which 
Time forever must compose melodies. The saying is the 

more worthy and timely what : ; allowed to be true and 

binding in near relations, often is held to be foolish or sentbr. 
when distributed or enlarged. But I appeal to experiment. 
Never yet has it been thought to try whether the love that create a 
home may not be potent to pr state ; whether the tender jus- 

I he forbearance, the helping hand, the endearme n t ce ment 

friendship, may not also be the force* that can conver: _ 

enemy, or bring an alien to our arms. Wha: haps, 

what! scatter your heart about at the store - at the house? 

- sprinkling the byways with love that belongs at home, 

:: I ~ere pouring myself out in spray from a waterin: 

. truly, friend: and yet I counsel not anything inconsistent 
with a gentle and delicate reserve. ZZ/j ■:- hH be more love it 
home when there is more abroad, and never before. The only 
justification of my loving any one person, is that it is little 
focussing of a great wide human love; for other- : private af- 
fections are simply a miser's goods. A sense of fellowhu- with h 
mankind must he at the bottom of any personal fellowship, how- 
t i private and tender, if it is to be rescued from greediness. Will 
a man love mother or wife or sister nobly, think you, who care 3 not 



8 A GRATEFUL SPIRIT. 

whether other women go unsheltered, so his he housed well? By 
what name may we call the feeling of the father for his little son if 
the man go about every day blind and deaf to all the tempta- 
tions that the dear sons of other men must meet in these flaunt- 
ing streets? I perceive that it is a plain law of love that he who 
hates anything, or is unmoved by the claim of the whole, thereby 
is stopped by God from loving any one worthily, and his senti- 
ment only reels and staggers like a drunkard about the little circle 
of his private indulgences. 

But my text says, "Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for he is 
good. " "He is good." Notice, it says not, good to us; simply, 
"He is good." Gratefulness, as I have said, makes no compar- 
isons. It is not more or less because fortune be more or less 
than once it was, or than another's is now Gratefulness is not 
quickened because our plenty is very plain, and shines by con- 
trast against some wider want or common poverty. Grateful- 
ness inspires not thanks that we are not as other men are. It 
simply lifts up the spirit to acknowledge with joy the infinite 
goodness of God. The Hindoos have a saying that a benefit 
finds its only measure in the worth of those who have received 
it. It may be of more or less outward value, its real worth is 
measured by its reception, — whether ignobly and sordidly, or 
generously and humanely received. Says Lord Bacon, "If a man 
be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's 
minds, and not their trash." All getting ourselves into a corner 
with our hearts and interests, the cutting off ourselves from the 
general import and body of humanity, this is not gratefulness, 
but ungratefulness. We may not give thanks because something 
is ours and not anothers'; this is not gratitude, but miserly 
chuckling. Samuel Johnson called patriotism " the last refuge 
of a scoundrel " — not because there is not a noble and humane 
love of country possible and glorious, but because a fierce and 
mean partisanship may cover a skulking selfishness at enmity 
with the race, 

To speak thus is simply the expression of our great joy in 
the universe, the great joy we may feel in the benignant 
and blessed Power in which we are ; a gladness and grateful- 
ness oh! not, not that God shows us favors, and covers us, with 
blessings, but that he is Favor and Blessing, and Love and 



A GEATEFUL SPIRIT. 9 

Peace and Goodness everywhere ; a sense of trust in that 
things are as they are ; of adoration, simply, of infinite Good- 
ness; of sympathy with the gladness of creatures, and tender 
desires toward those creatures, w T ith joy when our desires appear 
heaming in their happiness. True gratefulness will not single 
out ourselves, but ratner merge us in all beings, until we are 
filled with joy that there is so much joy, and that is all; of 
which joy our own is the least part and is most worthy in what 
it draws from our love of others. Not to give thanks that we 
are better off than others, but to make some others better off 
than they were, that is the impulse of the grateful soul — to 
improve the state of somebody, to add some drop of the oil of 
comfort or the wine of joy — a privilege, or some good thing, or a 
happiness bestowed. 

Think of this a moment, — What is God but infinite 
Bestowal and the Joy of it? And there are abodes of little cheer, 
yes, sometimes I think of no cheer; there are such things — 
think of that — left for our spheres of bestow T al. Some barren 
land may be converted into a land of milk and honey by us, by 
vs. Think what happiness so may be shed about, and what a 
thing happiness is! Mrs. Jameson says it is as dignified and 
sacred a thing as morality ; and it may be fruitful in a very 
lovely morality, being a constant encouragement and lifting, if 
it be taken gratefully. Then think, by this help of ours, what 
thanksgiving, that is, what forms of utterance of this grateful 
spirit, may go out like songs, like glad songs mingling with ours, 
yea, a part of our very own, concerted all together like melodies 
in a harmony, each lovely in itself, but loveliest with all others 
together — by this help of ours. 



AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 



" May this be a day of blessings to yon — sweet content with what is." 

"Thanks to the human heart by which we live, thanks to 
its tenderness, its joys and fears." These words corne to my 
mind on rising to speak to you, because I cannot look on you 
without emotions of wonder, of joy, of fear, of humility. Neither 
can I fail to gather much strength and hope from your faces, 
albeit I understand and feel deejay how pathetic and how 
humbling the fact is that people come to listen to the preacher 
week by week. And yet I have learned long ago that a friend 
may be scripture to us and speak scripture to us; yea, in the 
faces of some friends do I read scripture written in golden light, 
and in their words, their warnings, their tidings of affection, I 
find poems and scriptures as glorious as the songs of the morn- 
ing stars. To-day I will take even a text from a friend's mouth, 
as from Scripture. One wrote tome not long ago, " May this be 
a day of blessings to you — sweet content with what is." I paused 
with reverence over the benediction. It were enough if it had 
been " May this be a day of blessings to you." Then would 
have come trooping to my mind all the possible blessings of a 
day, which, as old George Herbert said, "hang in clusters, they 
come trooping upon us, they break forth like mighty waters on 
every side." I should have thought, mayhap, of the things that 
make a day happy, of what we call successes or pleasures. But 
there followed these words instantly, " sweet conte t with what zs," 
as the sum of a day of blessings. This indeed contained so deep 
and so blissful a thought, that I could not but follow it, and 
found it scripture to my soul. In the spirit of this saying I shall 
speak to you to-day of being at peace with things ; and I shall 
aim to give you reasons why we should be at peace with things, 



12 AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 

for I find myself greatly helped by seeing the reason for any 
good action or right spirit, and the unreasonableness of the 
opposites of them. For though I may answer correctly when 
good precepts are urged on me, or when they seem to cry aloud 
to me, in this general way, I find often that this is no sure 
armor when the combat comes and the strife has me in its grasp, 
but is lost in the exigency or emotion. The precept comes not 
to hand to help me at this critical point, because it has not 
become a part of thought, a part of thought I say, but is only 
my own unheeding assent to a common currency of sentiment. 
Thus, it is easy to say we ought to be at peace with things; but 
when the trouble presses, what then? what becomes of the say- 
ing? The mere precept falls out of sight; it avails not, because 
we have not made it the substance of our thinking, so as to see 
how reasonable it is, and how unreasonable not to be peace with 
things. The world is full of the discords and the troubles, the 
complaints, the sighs which come of not having wrought this 
peace into the fibres of our thoughts. The poor continually are 
sighing for the middle estate, so that a great deal of strength 
and time goes into sighing which should go into earning. And 
the middle estate envies the power of the very rich, and feels as 
poor as the poorest. And the very rich, what are they doing 
meantime, but longing and sighing and often groaning with the 
cares, which their easy but not wealthy neighbors never feel, 
yet seem to cry aloud to sutler. Therefore it is wise and useful 
to give a principle which may become thought within us, and 
show us why it is so reasonable to be at peace with things. 

Now I have observed this, — I say it is a matter of observa- 
tion, — that when we are not at peace with things, but at war, 
we are going about not looking at the whole of our lot, but only 
at some things in it; and these things we compare enviously 
with some things in the lots of others. But consider how 
unreasonable this is. Against which unreasonableness, this is 
the principle I offer, namely, that we must take our lot as a 
whole; and so taken, we never would exchange it for any other, 
because always we shall find some one thing at least too precious 
to be parted with. And if we have some one thing so precious that 
we would not part with it for anything, what is that but having 
our lot very precious indeed therewith? Is it not foolish to 



AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 13 

think of taking the best things out of many lots, one thing out 
of this condition, another out of that situation, and so, keeping 
all our own delights too, thereupon grumbling because we can- 
not have this artificial compound made up by us as a workmen 
mixes stuffs? We must take our lot as it comes to us. And 
how comes it to us? Emerging from the multitude of conditions 
around us and far back of us, which are divine. From these it 
emerges holy, God-made., And would we change it for any 
other? No, because we have something in it that we would not 
give up. Then if it be unnatural to make a human lot by striv- 
ing to piece together the best things out of all other lots about 
us, and if it be natural and reasonable to take our lot all as one 
thing, as it comes forth from God's hand, and if, so taken, 
we would not change it for any other, why, then how foolish 
and childish it is to grumble at this lot, which, nevertheless, we 
would not part with if we could. 

Every one of us can think easily of things he would not 
part with for all other things of the great rich earth put together. 
It may be a wife or husband, whose daily strength and cheer 
compass us, and take up, as in a skilled and strong hand, the 
very hardness of some of our conditions, like a flint, whereon 
then with their hearts they strike sparks forth, which either light 
the darkness or kindle a fire whereat we may warm ourselves. 
It may be some precious companionship of mind or heart or 
soul, which may pack every day with rich experiences, with 
knowledge of life, because life abounds so in that union, with 
glowing thoughts or radiant expression ; and these things freight 
memory for a life-voyage with great sustenance, and we never can 
be hungry unto utter pain or weakness. Or it may be perhaps 
dear children, whose daily sweetness nobody knows but us, the 
daily observers. And how precious and lovely it is to be daily 
observers of these little lives that are ours to cherish, the precious 
first-born to young parents mayhap, or the lovely last-born 
to the old, or the group of midway younglings who fill your 
house with a gaiety which is like birds in a grove, in whose music 
your own springtime comes again, better even than it was in 
your own early years. Or the son whose manly worth is a proud 
joy to you; or the daughter whose grace is like willows over 
graves, so beautiful and such message of comfort it is! Or it 



i4 AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 

may be a brother or sister or father or mother, or friend. Nay, 
it may be but the work you are doing day by day, doing nobly, 
doing secretly mayhap; and all the more wondrous comfort and 
preciousness may lie in it if it be known only to a few who 
thank us for it with all their souls. Nay, it may not even be 
any of these things, but only a memory of them all, or of some 
of them; that kind of memory in which a delicious companion- 
ship we once had is immortal; memories of little men-children 
or women-children who slid off our breasts, too narrow for them, 
to the wide earth and the heavens, but off of our breasts deep as 
those heavens with memory and love. Nay, I can conceive of a 
look, of an expression on some face, when it is not known we 
are observing it, of a hand-touch, of a depth in the eyes, which, 
having once had or seen we would not exchange for "the wealth 
of seas and the spoils of war." Now if every one can think 
easily of such-like things in his lot, mayhap of some one thing 
only which he would not part with for all other things together, 
think for an instant what a fact that is! Is it not a thing of 
deep moment, of wonder, of divinity, that every one has some- 
thing he would not exchange for all other things? Surely this 
is something to fasten on. So long as the mind dwells on this, 
there will be no moment for repining. And is it not reasonable, 
I say, to dwell most and longest on that possession which is 
worth more than all the world to us, which we would not think 
of bartering for all the best things together that all the other 
persons have? Surely this is very reasonable, as it is also very 
simple. And yet it is the secret of the happy and grateful spirit 
which is at peace with things. 

This oneness of our lot, whereby it must be taken all 
parts together as a unit, is a fact that reaches far back into past 
generations, nay, into a past which sinks in itself until it is lost 
and even Time seems gone. We could not change one portion of 
our lot, and leave another as it is, without altering conditions 
back into so shadowy a realm that truly we should know not 
where we were, — without changing the order of things. "It 
takes all mankind to make a man," a poet says, " and each 
man when he dies takes a whole earth away with him." When 
the child in your arms smiles, the little flexible mouth and the 
eyelids, the dimpled cheeks, move just as they do, and not 



AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 15 

otherwise, by causes which ran back out of sight until they are 
lost iri God : and when two little children smile, the expressions 
are as diflerent as the past conditions from which they have come 
so mysteriously. Away, far beyond all reckoning and all imag- 
inings, you began to be made. In what did you begin? What 
was the first forecast of you? Truly, when I ask this question I 
am led much more to wonder whether I began at all. What 
kind of creatines, plants, passions, thoughts, then flourished on 
this earth, when, if ever, I began, when the something that was 
to bloom in me took its beatihc life? Nay, where indeed was the 
earth perhaps? You must have begun in it in some way when it 
was yet "without form and void." Something there was which 
the prediction of you. What forms and progressions led 
to you, what myriads of conspiring atoms worked together when 
your features began to be foretold far back? And a like multi- 
tude of forces and atoms toiled together through aeons of ages to 
the making of all other persons who came near to any one of the 
long line of human beings from whom you have come, or any 
other person who has touched your own life in the present. All 
sprung out of that same unfathomable depth, and all have joined 
together to make your lot what it is. I wonder not that John 
Weiss said that the most religious thing in the universe is any 
fact whatever. Thus we are obliged to look at our lot as one 
whole, because such an infinity of causes has worked together to 
make it; yea, an in fin ity of causes has worked on every little part 
of it, and the simplest thing in our lot would be a little different 
if even one of this multitude had been absent or had been 
changed. Now to look so at our lot as a whole, what is it but 
to regard it as we do any natural product, a flower, a tree, a 
mountain? We may find some flaw in each of these if we look 
with an eye seeking flaws, which is a very bad kind of an eye; 
we may see flaws in any natural thing, I say, whereby it falls 
short of the ideal of its shape or structure. But we look at the 
object all as one, and call it beautiful and grand, and take it 
thankfully, knowing that the conditions which have turned its 
parts this way or that way are inline a surable and hidden in 
Nature's store-house, which is the same as to say in the bosom 
of the life of God. In a like way we must think of our lot as a 
natural product, whose conditions and formation we cannot 



16 AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 

fathom. And if we find it, thus taken all as one, too precious to 
be exchanged, it is foolish and ungrateful and impious to com- 
plain of a lot which we would not barter if we could for any 
other that ever we have seen; and, if we look, it seems to be 
like a feature in the countenance of God. 

" Gentle pilgrim, if thou know 
The garment old of Pan, 
And how the hills began, 
The frank blessings of the hill 
Fall on thee— as fall they will." 

Now when nature thus has laid out our fate and lot, pre- 
pared during countless ages of the workings of countless forces, 
then we see at once that our own will comes into play. It makes 
a great difference how we act on the circumstances which this 
far-working Providence has brought around us. Let us look at 
this. 

We see in our lot bright things and dark things. The dark 
things are those which we shall complain of unless we take 
thought to be reasonable. The bright things include those 
which are too precious to allow the thought of exchanging 
them. What shall we do if we be wise and reasonable? How 
shall we act on this lot of ours? My answer is, — We shall be 
careful to look mainly at the brightness, at the bright things. 
If we do that, we shall get a great supply of light by which we 
can see our way in the world. It is very strange that we who 
need a lamp for our feet through all the wondrous, strange, 
complex ways of life, nevertheless put away the bright things 
which will shed light for us, and look at the dark things. And 
still more, if we look at bright things they give understanding 
how to look reasonably and patiently on the darker things ; for 
not only have these bright things a light to show us how to 
walk our path, but they show us the dark things in that path 
in such a way that we can understand better why they shine 
not, and the light leads to comprehension of the shadows. 
Especially we should look long and lovingly on those bright 
things which are so precious and dear as to be prized above all 
possessions and wealth, dearer to us than all other things 
together. Why should we look for the bad when the good is by 
us? And why look most on aught but the best? If we have a 



AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 17 

picture hi which a rare genius and rich knowledge of life have 
joined feeling and fancy, shall we be blind to this because some 
parts are out in the drawing? Once I stood looking, rapt, at a 
marvelous piece of sculpture, as it seemed to me, an old man, 
who looked out wonderingly, with the simple pathos of wonder, 
into a great distance, which seemed to have become a 
distance and marvel to him while he was asleep, — familiar and 
close at hand before. There was to my mind an exquisite ten- 
derness, patience, pathos and wonder in the old face, in the 
raised hand, in all the attitude, at once so feeble and yet so 
strong. And as I stood admiring it, a friend at my side said, 
having been speechless all the time before, " Don't you think 
that fore-arm is a little too long? " I confess my heart sank 
within me a little, for I would fain not have had my own atten- 
tion directed to bad, when good was by me so beautifully. If 
we have a gem of gleaming lustre, shall we fill our eyes with flaws 
in it? If there are dear faces in which souls shine, in which 
life's central mysteries send waves of feeling back and forth twixt 
the heart and the margins, the mouth, the eyes, who will stop 
before such beauty to pick out a mole in the features? Even so 
it is wise to look at our fortunes, holding our eyes on the 
inestimable things, which no one could buy from us with all 
the wealth of worlds; for thus we shall keep at peace with all 
things among which are such precious things. 

But again, I say the dark things in our lot either are in our 
power or are not in our power. It is familiar to you, from my 
long preaching to you, that I draw a great deal of help from the 
old distinction of the Stoics, that all things are of two classes, 
the things which are in our power and the things which are not 
in our power. Now the dark things are either in our power or 
not, that is, if they continue to exist, or if they remain dark, it 
is either our own fault, or else it is beyond our power. Well, if 
the things we complain of are in our power, then is it not 
foolish to repine? For we have simply to change and cure them, 
being powerful over them. Before we complain indeed, it will 
be well to ask very closely whether the evils be not in our power 
to be cured, and come not by our own fault; for we shall be 
surprised at the many ills which prove to be of our own making 
if we study them well. Many persons go through life complain- 



18 AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 

ing of troubles which are hut their own ignorance or idleness or 
envy or wastefulness or ill manners, or ingratitude or heedless- 
ness, transformed to plague them, like flies breeding in decay; 
and they will not clear away the breeding heaps. There are 
hopeless ills, I know (I think I hear some of you saying this 
to me), — there are ills which once done cannot be healed. Yes, 
they are sad ills, the most woful kind — wreck and ruin of 
the heart. But these evils always give us warnings before they 
fall on us. Nature never yet broke her pact with any soul, no, nor 
in these woful things ever took a heart by surprise; nay, she is 
prodigal of warnings. Nature sends troops of heralds to tell us 
of the danger first; but the dread last time, the on ce-too- often of 
our selfishness or blindness, shuts the record forever. And if by 
anger or malice or selfishness or neglect we have turned these 
evils loose to settle on us, how complain we then if they last 
forever? If you turn love adrift, for example, into storms, to 
bear what may be, while you sit and nurse yourself in ease, will you 
murmur then if love freeze, or die hunger-smitten by the way- 
side, and is dead? If you seek not, or half seek an end, will you 
sit down childishly and cry because you gain it not? If you 
have wasted years in riot or in idleness, can you complain, like 
a whining school-boy, because time will not move backward to 
make good your truancy? If you have leaped recklessly, or been 
fool-hardy, will you - whimper that you picked not the fruit of 
wisdom and painstaking? If you have cast away chances by 
misbehavior, what a thing it is to grumble because the oppor- 
tunity comes not your way again. Yet the world is full of weak 
wailings for good things, whose price nevertheless the one who 
wails simply will not pay, and of complaints at ills whose condi- 
tions he who complains makes for himself. 

Thus much of the dark things that are in our power. But 
now, if the dark things in our lot be not in our power, and not 
our own fault, then it is our part to bear them nobly ; and there 
is no greater nobility than patient and noble enduring. When 
a trouble cannot be removed, then there is a high way of taking 
it up, as it were, in our hands and laying it right on our hearts, and 
pressing it there hard without murmuring. This is the field both 
of kindness and of religion. It is the field of kindness, for there 
are many ills in life that, not being our own fault, befall us by 



AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 19 

the fault of others. What shall we do with these? Well, we 
must take them in a kind, forbearing, forgiving, merciful way. 
Oh I know I am preaching a hard doctrine; but it is heaven's 
doctrine, it is truth, it is ideal, it is divine living. To murmur 
savagely, to complain churlishly, is revengeful, and to whimper 
pettishly is ignoble. "Let us beware," said an old Stoic, " of 
feeling towards the cruel as they feel towards others," taking 
any evil in a way that may be as harsh as the injury and more 
gross. If we are loaded with ills by another's act, let us not burden 
ourselves more by ill taking of the ill. Nay, I have thought 
sometimes that there is no great ill, except the bad way in which 
we take the ill. For, remember this, — if we cannot teach 
another what is right, or make him wiser than to harm us, that 
is a good reason for being very meek in ourselves, as a wise Stoic 
said; and if we cannot cure the ill, there is left the dignity of 
bearing it quietly; and that is a decoration by God. 

And this, again, is the field of religion. For if the ills of 
our lot are not in our power, and are not the fault of others, then 
they belong in the order of that mysterious and holy providence 
which has prepared our way and cleft a path for us, running back 
far beyond our sight, and forward, and all along the way within his 
holy counsel. In this we stand on the edge of the solemn, 
mighty, infinite Law and Order. We cannot tell where the facts 
of our lot were wrought on the star-forges of the heavens, £ « what 
anvils rang, what hammers beat" to shape our destiny; we 
know not how the holy past in which God worked in his perfec- 
tion prepared the way for us through myriads of ages, nor can 
we see how we, held as in the hollow of a hand by that same 
order, that same infinite mercy, are preparing for others to 
come. Nay, I said we cannot see how God worked in his per- 
fection ; but we cannot see even that there is perfection, for the 
sweep of view that reveals Divinity is as hard to us, as to see all 
around a sphere. But we can see that there is blessedness and 
beauty, we can behold order reigning; even though we have to 
look through immense reaches of space, and over vast aeons of 
time to see this order, because it is too grand to be seen in the 
little events at our feet, which nevertheless are in it. Still, so 
looking, we do see it, a sight of glory and of rapture; and the 
heavens lying in the lap of it. It has no " shadow of turning," 



20 AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 

no changeableness, no unrest, no shifting, veering, nor 
swerving, nor shuffling, no pause, no stop, no truce. It is 
never sorry for anything done, nor in haste to do aught. It is 
the same Almighty Life, Thought and Power forever and ever 
and ever, in the beginning, now, and worlds without end. We 
can see the hands thereof moving in the infinite heavens, we 
can not behold that hand reaching down to pick up the least 
part of our life and send it going in an order as infinite and 
heavenly as the starry spaces. Yet so it does. Our joys that 
hand takes up and sets them in the heavens, if we will but look, 
if we will but know the hand and know that it takes up our joys 
into the heavens, where they are like stars shining, beautiful, 
celestial. And our woes too that hand takes up, our sorrows, 
our struggles, our failures and our sins, that we may repent and 
strive again, our losses and our disappointments (and how terri- 
ble those may be when we have set our hope very high and very 
preciously), our long toils that seem so unrewarded and never are 
unrewarded, our daily utter weariness perhaps, when night comes, 
with our terrible toil. And all the turmoil and wrong and outrage, 
and faithfulness and desertion and greed and robbery and hard- 
ness of heart, all these too that hand takes up; for the power of God 
is like the atmosphere or the sea, that takes all the earth's smoke 
and waste, and is not stained. If we see and feel and know of 
that hand, then we shall gain a new power — 

" The insanity of towns to stem, 
With simpleness for stratagem." 

We have but to remember that this whole order is God's thinking. 
In it the heavens swim, and in the heavens the earth sails, and on 
the earth we are. We therefore are of the earth, which is of the 
heavens, which are of God's thinking; and in his life and power, 
then, is our lot held and made. Whatever it be therefore, in the 
sorrow and pains that are not in our power, let us recall that it 
floats in the thinking of God, and tread solemnly and piously. 
To be at peace with things thus, is to be at peace with God. 
Therefore let us, who may be scriptures unto each other, 
beware how we live in this matter, and how we speak. If we 
have a friend who needs aid and counsel, write not to him that 
you pray that he be delivered and that the cup pass him by; nay, 



AT PEACE WITH THINGS. 2 1 

but say, " Brother, like the Jews of old who always prayed with 
their faces toward Jerusalem, I turn myself towards thee now 
and beseech that strength be given thee, strength, knowledge 
and courage to say and do the right, which shall make thee at 
peace with things. I ask not to have thy burden lifted, but for 
strength and light to see that it is well, and for courage to bear 
bravely and cheerfully. Oh my brother, I would not dare peti- 
tion to have burdens taken away. We know not the workings of 
the Infinite; we are not able to tell the future; even the events 
of a moment we cannot forecast. How foolish and undevout 
it is, then, to fret and to be anxious. Let us have faith. I bid 
thee be of good courage and cheer! " And for ourselves, let us 
not hedge the influence and import of our wills by murmurs, 
complaints and moans against the whole order of living things 
(and all things are living things), nor mutter and sigh and make 
outcry about things not in our power, but in the Almighty Keeping 
of God. 

Thus I have tried to show the reasonableness of being at 
peace with things: 

Because we should take our lot as one thing, just as the 
infinite of God brings it to us. 

Because so taken we never shall wish to exchange it, since 
it holds some things too precious to be parted with. 

Because we ought to look long and gratefully at these 
precious things if they are worth more to us than all other things 
together, until we get light from them to show us our way. 

Because many of the ills are our own fault, and we should 
cure them and not groan about them. 

Because of the ills not our own fault, and not in our power, 
some are made by other persons, and these we arc to take with 
a forbearance like unto God's mercy; and some are inwoven 
with the unchangeable order of God's laws, and these we are to 
take with piety, looking up unto his Infinity of Power and his 
Eternity of Love. 



YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 



This morning I shall speak to you of Yahweh in the Bible. 
Yahweh is the same as Jehovah, but is the more correct pronun- 
ciation. Nevertheless we cannot be sure that this is the true 
sound of it, as it was spoken by the Hebrews of old. The 
sound of that holy name was forgotten by the Hebrews because 
it was held by them so holy that it might not be spoken without 
sacrilege. According to the Rabbinical tradition, it might be 
spoken but once in the year, and then by only one man in the 
nation, namely, the High Priest when he entered annually into the 
Holy of Holies in the Temple. Beyond this it could never be 
spoken; and that tradition has come down so unbroken among the 
Jews that in their synagogues to-day, in their reading of the Script- 
ures, they put another word in the place of Yahweh when they come 
to that name in the text. Now perhaps this may be a superstition; 
I will not say it is not. Indeed, I know that the human spirit in 
sincerity is free of the whole universe, to use and to speak what 
it will. And yet that old superstition had a high and holy beauty 
about it, in my mind. It is in the spirit of the words of Sir 
Thomas Browne, which always pleased me ; he says, u I confess 
I am naturally inclined to that which misguided zeal temis 
superstition. My conversation I do acknowledge austere, my 
behavior full of rigor, sometimes not without morosity; yet at my 
devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat and my 
hand, with all the outward and sensible motions which may 
express or promote my invisible devotion." " I should violate mine 
own arm," he says, " rather than a church, and I could never 
hear the Ave-Mary bell without an elevation." I like that 
tender and delicate spirit of devotion which thus takes up with 
soft and reverent touch all that belongs to things sacred and 



24 YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 

religious. The quick, harsh, sudden and familiar use of sacred 
names seems to me unreligious, even irreligious, and very sad. 

I like not those, nor do I think much of their piety, on 
whose lips the Sacred Name is taken oftenest and most easily ; 
and when it is taken, I like the custom of that reverent and holy 
man who never could say the name of Gcd without a little pause, 
and a hush and lowering of the tcne. We speak of the whispers 
of love; why not also the softened tone, the whisper, the reverent 
utterance and the hush of simple and pure religious feeling? 
Quiet is in itself so holy and so lovely that it belongs in holy 
places, and with sacred and religious names. "A wide quiet," 
saith a poet, very beautifully, " A wide quiet on the hilltops fall- 
ing," and the same singer speaking of his presence on a hill, by 
hills surrounded and lifted high up into the blue of a summer sky, 
says: 

" Niched in the mighty minster we, 

Beneath the dome of radiant blue : 
Cathedral-hush on every side, 

And worship breathing through. 

The Silence, awful living word, 
Behind all sound, behind all thought, 

Whose speech is Nature-yet-to-be, 
The Poem yet unwrought." 

Thus would I that quiet and holy silence and hush of voice should 
invest sacred names and thoughts. Parker says it is beautiful 
to have a pious mind, and sometimes to speak therefrom, and 
the love of God, he says, may cover over all our lives with sim- 
ple beauty and joy;but " unhappy is the man or woman who tat- 
tles thereof, foaming at the mouth in some noisy conference, as 
in a village cur barks to cur; but blessed is he whose noiseless piety 
sweetens his daily toil, filling the house with the odor of that 
ointment." Epictetos advises thus, " Think of God oftener 
than you breathe." Ah yes, think of him in everything, in thine 
awaking, in thy fresh strength in the morning, at thy morning 
meal and thy morning labor, and thy noon-day rest; and when 
the night descends with its quiet, and its sentinels of stars watch- 
ing the holy peace, then think of him; and when thou liest 
down to sleep and art not afraid, think of him. In the rain- 
drop, in the bird's music, in the glorious light of day, in the 
march of the orbs of the heavens, think of him. Think of him 



YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 25 

in thy friendships and thy loves, in thy home circles; in the dig- 
nity of thy daily toils too, and under the sweet refreshing quality 
of thy fatigue which laps thee in holy slumber, think of him. 
Think of him, ah yes! But that is the emphasis, — Think of him. 
Speak not of him. If Epictetus had said, Speak of God oftener 
than you breathe, surely we should have felt no religion therein, 
and nothing like to the grand, old, patient slave-philosopher, no, 
but some profaneness and impiety. Therefore I say it was a high 
and holy superstition, if you call it such, which kept the holy name 
among the Jews from being taken into their mouths familiarly 
and commonly. 

If we wish to gain some idea of what Yahweh was to the 
old Hebrew race, we must try to get a glimpse of the times before 
Moses. There we shall find that the ancient Yahweh was with- 
out doubt a Nature-god, as in the primitive beginnings of religion 
all the greatest deities are. For man naturally personifies first 
those'things which most strike his senses; and that which first 
does that office for him is light and darkness, the glory of the 
sun which daily is swallowed up in the night, and again comes 
forth in the morning ; so that the great deities which began reli- 
gion were Nature-gods, and almost always either sun-gods, that 
is personifications of the sun's power and light, or else heaven- 
gods, that is rulers over the atmostphere and the clouds ; and 
sometimes the two were joined together ; and this was probably 
the case with Yahweh. Now, wherever you find a Nature-god 
you will find, first, that the deity is unmoral, I say not immoral, but 
unmoral ; because the sun shines, the morning rises, the night de- 
scends, the rain falls, on the good and bad alike, without distinction. 
Nature makes no moral separations. Wherefore the Nature-gods 
show their favors and give their benign offices to those that serve 
them, but without regard at first to the moral condition of those that 
serve. So it was with Yahweh, as we may find traces in the Bible 
itself; as, for example in the fraud by which Jacob obtained the 
birthright of his brother, a fraud nevertheless which is smiled 
on by Yahweh when once the patriarch's word and faith are 
pledged to it. 1 Nature-gods, again, are either pleasure-loving 
deities, whom you will find most where nature is soft and benign 

1. Gen. XXVII, XXVIII. 



26 • YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 

and the earth easily yields her increase ; or they are stern, austere, 
and terrihle deities, as you will find most where the country is 
fierce and wild, and storms abound and the soil is rocky. This 
was the character of Yahweh. He was a god belonging far back 
in the Armenian hills whence the Hebrew race came. He was 
a stern, merciless, austere and terrible deity, delighting in human 
sacrifice, as the Bible plainly shows. It was ordained among 
the Hebrews that the first-born of every creature, man included, 
should be devoted and sacrificed to Yahweh in commemoration 
of the exodus from Egypt; 1 and it is probable that sometimes this 
dreadful doom was carried out literally, before, and even perhaps 
after, it became lawful to substitute a payment in money for the 
sacrifice of the first born of men. We see too in the stories of 
Abraham, 2 and of Jephthah's 3 daughter, that the notion of 
human sacrifice by no means was foreign to the Hebrew thought. 
Such then was the Yahweh of the tribes in Goshen. He was 
perhaps a tribal god, worshiped by only one of the tribes, or 
perhaps he was worshiped by all of them, this common worship 
giving them perhaps a certain loose unity and nationality in their 
life in Goshen. Into this condition of things came the colossal 
influence of Moses. The great religious work of Moses was two- 
fold. First, he chose a god for all Israel and proclaimed that he 
alone should be worshiped, that he only was Israel's deity ; and 
Moses chose for that god not any pleasure-loving divinity, or any 
less grand deity than the austere, mighty and terrible Yahweh. 
The second part of Moses' religious work was to invest that choice 
with moral conceptions, as he did by the ten Words or Command- 
ments, which we may suppose date back to Moses more surely 
and competely than any other part of the early books of the Bible. 
Thus it was Moses' great glory that not only he chose a grand 
and austere and terrible deity, and not a pleasure-loving one, for 
his people, but he joined religion with life, and made piety to 
depend on right conduct and good living. 

We cannot honor to highly such a great work as that at that 
early date. Indeed we must admit there are traces that the work 
could not be completed at once, and we cannot be sure just how 

1. Exod, XIII, 11—15 : XXII, 29—30. 

2. Gen. XXII. 3. Judges XI, 30-40 



YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 27 

much of this lofty and pure conception lay unclouded and clear 
in Moses' own mind. For example, we find the narrative that 
when Yahweh looked down from the mountain, and beheld the 
people worshiping the golden calf, he fell into a great fit of wrath, 
and told Moses he would destroy all that rebellious race of people 
and build up a new race from Moses himself. And Moses then 
besought him not to do so, using a very strange argument, one 
would think, to address to a holy and grand deity ; his plea is, 
If the Lord destroy his people that he has brought from the land 
of Egypt, the Egyptians will mock at the Lord, and say, Behold 
for evil he took them out from the land of Egypt, to slay them in 
the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth. 1 
And again it is related that Moses wished to see the face of God, 
and God told him that his face could not be seen by any one 
without death to him ; but he said, I will set you in a cleft of 
the rock, and then I will pass by, and as I pass by I will put my 
hand over your eyes to shield you from beholding my face 
which would be death to you, and when I have passed by, then 
you may look forth and see my back as I go on. 2 Thus we 
behold ascribed even to Moses and his time these inferior 
conceptions of the nature of Yahweh. Yet Moses' choice, and 
his association with it of moral conceptions, was a strong seed 
which grew and prospered and developed in a spiritual direction. 
From which it followed that there began a struggle between the 
people on one side, who remained for generations on generations 
sunk in the lower conceptions, and the prophets on the other, 
who laid hold on the spirituality of the religion which Moses 
planted, and followed it to the heights. Let us then look for a 
moment at the conception of Yahweh among the people alone, 
then at the conception which the people held with the prophets 
in one, and then at the conception which the prophets held all 
alone, beyond and above the people. 

The Hebrew people held sensuous conceptions of Yahweh. 
They made images of him, or at least images symbolical to them, 
notwithstanding the prohibition in their law. They had at one 
time in their history, the image of a bull, worshiped at different 
places in Palestine, associated, no doubt, with thoughts of Yahweh. 

1. Exod. XXXII, 7—14. 2. Exod. XXXIII, 2C— 23. 



28 YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 

They always conducted their worship in a sensuous manner, by 
external sacrificial rites. They held the idea that by sacrificing 
to Yahweh they could propitiate him, and that he was pleased 
with the smell of sacrifice and incense. They believed that in 
some shape he lived on the Ark between the Cherubim of that 
mysterious structure, so that they felt strong wherever they could 
carry the Ark with them ; and when it was taken by the enemy, 
all courage deserted them. 1 The people also believed that 
Yahweh was one of many gods. For hundreds of years the 
prophets were warring with the people against their worship of 
other gods. The people bowed to the gods of the nations round 
about them; they thought that Yahweh indeed was the greatest and 
grandest of deities, but still that others were worthy of their 
adoration, and must be appeased. 

The ideas which the people and the prophets held together 
were these : Yahweh was thought to be Israel's God in partic- 
ular; he loved Israel; he had chosen that people, and cared noth- 
ing for the other nations of the earth, — indeed he was a foe of 
all other nations; but Israel he would nurse and bring to great 
glory, because they were his own chosen people, and he was their 
God. Also, the prophets and people together conceived of Yahweh 
as having a local habitation and abiding place. Indeed, he could 
not be worshiped, according to their conception, outside of 
Palestine, because he was not there to be worshiped, only living 
with his chosen people in the places where they were. Hence it 
was a terrible thing among the ancient Hebrews to be banished 
from their land or country, because they were banished also from 
their God; he could not be found in the strange and foreign coun- 
tries they were driven to. 2 They also conceived that this local 
habitation was in the crystal heavens over the holy land which 
they occupied, and that there Yahweh dwelt and was the Yahweh 
of Hosts, which means the ruler of hosts of angels or messengers 
by which he executed his will on the earth, and also the ruler of 
the stars ; for in the Hebrews' conception the stars were associated 
in some way with the angels, and the Yahweh of Hosts meant 
the Yahweh of the heavenly bodies and the angelic armies. 

Now we come to the more glorious conception which the 
prophets held alone, to which the people had not risen. Chief 

1. 1 Samuel IV. 2. 1 Samuel XXVI, 19. 



YAHWEH IX THE BIBLE. 29 

and greatest among these was their view of the holiness of Yahweh. 
He was separated by his imimagined and inexpressible purity from 
all creation. He lived apart from it and above it, was not in any 
way mingled with it, was too pure to be in it. He was inexpressly 
exalted and holy, beyond all human conception, in the minds of 
the prophets. There are many passages of Scripture in the pro- 
phetic literature, expressing this very nobly: Isaiah says, 

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. 
The whole earth is full of his glory," 

and in another place he calls Yahweh " the holy one of Israel." 
Amos says: (v, 21— 23,) 

" I hate, I despise your feasts; 
I have no delight in your solemn assemblies. 
When ye offer me burnt offerings and flour-offerings, 
I will not accept them. 

And upon the thank-offerings of your f atlings I will not look. 
Take ye away from me the noise of your songs, 
And the music of your harps let me not hear; 
Let justice flow forth as waters, 
And righteousness as a mighty stream! " 
That is to say, I will take no delight in the odour of your sacrifices 
and incense. For it was a part of this holiness of Yahweh in 
the minds of the prophets that he cared not for external worship 
but for the inward state of the heart, and that all sacrifice and 
ceremony were to him as naught. What he desired was the inward 
worship of right conduct. This was a sublime conception which 
the people had not reached. Hosea says, (vi, 6,) 
" I desire mercy and not sacrifice, 
The knowledge of God more than burnt offerings;" 
and again Isaiah (1, 11-17.) 

"What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith 
Yahweh. 
I am satiated with burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of 

the fed beasts ; 
In the blood of bullocks and of lambs and of goats I have 
no delight. 



30 YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 

When ye come to appear before me, 

Who hath required this of you, to tread my courts? 

Bring no more false oblations! 

Incense is an abomination to me, 

The new moon also and the sabbath and the calling of 
the assembly; 

Iniquity and festivals I cannot endure. 

Your new moons and your feasts my soul hateth; 

They are a burden to me; 

I am weary of bearing them. 

When ye spread forth your hands, 

I will hide mine eyes from you ; 

Yea, when ye multiply prayers, I will not hear; 

'Your hands are full of blood! 

Wash you ; make you clean ; 

Put away your evil doings from before mine eyes; 

Cease to do evil; 

Learn to do well; 

Seek justice; relieve the oppressed; 

Defend the fatherless; plead for the widow!" 
And again, those noble words from Micah, (vi, 6— s,) 
" Wherewith shall I come before Yahweh, 

And bow myself before the most high God? 

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, 

With calves of a year old? 

Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams, 

Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 

Shall I give my first-born for the sin of my soul, 

The fruit of my body for my transgression? " 
You will notice here that even in the times of Micah this thought 
of the possibility of human sacrifice was still so well known to 
the people that the prophet might mention it without fear of being 
misunderstood. Then says Micah, aswering his question glor- 
iously, 

" He hath showed thee, man, what is good; 

What doth Yahweh require of thee, 

But to do justly and to love mercy, 

And to walk humbly before thy God ? " 
This was a high, glorious and holy conception of Yahweh in the 



YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 31 

minds of the prophets. They also considered him the only 
creator of all nature, and of all mankind. Nothing was made 
that was not made by Yalrweh. They spoke of him also as the 
one supreme ruler, lawgiver and power of the earth ; and among 
all the nations, not only over his chosen people, but over all other 
nations too, did he reign, according to the prophets, and would 
yet bring them to the holy city and to his own foot-stool in the 
enjoyment of the glory of the one God of Israel. That was the 
prophetic dream. Yahweh, too, in the minds of the prophets, was 
the giver of every blessing; no good thing but came from his 
hands. Also he was the giver of all calamities and evils. Amos 
says very plainly, " Shall evil be done in the city, and the Lord 
not do it ? " But not only so ; Yahweh also created and enforced 
moral evils. It was the Lord who hardened the heart of Pharaoh 
to prevent his people from going, that thus the Lord's wonders 
might be worked and the king punished. 1 Not only so, but he 
is represented by the prophets as hardening the hearts of his own 
people, 2 the Israelites, that he may show his glory and holiness 
by punishment of the wicked, before at last he brings all the chosen 
nation back to his mercy. Yahweh was the head of a moral 
government of the world, which he administered by penalties, that 
is, by natural and historical calamities, failures in war, loss of 
battles, subjugation by foreign peoples, storms, earth-quakes. 
Events of this kind were considered Yahweh's punishments for 
guilt. We look on such things now in a better and higher way. 
It is very hard for us to understand how religious people could 
conceive of their deity as deliberately hardening the hearts of his 
people in order that he might punish them for that same hardening 
of the heart. But we are dealing, we must remember, with people 
that never reasoned, never philosophized, were merely worshipers, 
primitive worshipers too at this time, full of their thoughts of 
wonders, signs and miracles. It has been always the genius of 
the Semitic peoples, the Hebrews, the Arabs and other like races, 
to conceive of their deities as outside of nature, making it, and 
ruling it from outside. Wherever that conception exists, it will 
be found to go with the notion of miraculous interference, of rul- 
ing by means of arbitrary penalties, sent in the shape of convul- 

1. Exod, VII, 3. 2. Is, LXIII, 17. 



32 YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 

sions of nature or historical calamities. But we conceive of God 
not as out of nature, but as in nature, living in nature; I 
would rather say indeed living na'ure, living it forth. He is 
nature. I might speak of Nature as the visibility, the audibility, 
the tangibility of God. And when we have that thought of him, 
not anywhere far off, always in all that he has made, or I would 
rather say all that he is now making or appearing, then we come 
into the realm of beautiful and glorious and living order, and all 
these strange ancient conceptions fly away like morning mists. 
Then we find order reigning from the least little atom to the 
most gigantic globe, in all the external domain of nature; and 
the little dew drop takes on its semi-globular shape on the 
leaf, and the rain drop falls in its fiery sphere, by the same laws 
that govern the revolution of the earth and the motions of the 
planets. And the same order rules in the moral sphere, whether 
it be in the small angers of the little child with which we wrestle 
in the nursery, or the uprisings of a city, or the gigantic clamors 
and wars and frantic wraths of a people, or the great struggles 
and moral turmoils, the crimes, the cruelties, of the whole earth. 
It is one law, one method, one nature that runs through all, and 
they are all taken up into the uttermost purposes of the same 
power of God. And the same order runs through all our joys. 
It is the same thing when the little child prattles and smiles in 
infantile gaiety, and when we with our larger knowledge exper- 
ience the joys of love, of friendship, of thought, even of mere 
healthy living, of glorious animal existence — the same thing 
through all, and up to the beatific songs of the seraphs ; it is the 
same glory, the same God-like fact, and all included in the one 
marvel of order, " the stream of tendency." Then, with this con- 
ception we take the last great step; we learn that law and love 
are one, are the same, " named with the Everlasting Name." 

Another point of the noble way in which the prophets regarded 
Yahweh was his unity. The prophets were monotheists strictly. 
They worshiped no other deity whatever. They were always 
struggling with the idolatries of the people, always proclaiming 
that there was but one God, and that one was Yahweh. The 
Hebrew prophets continually are saying in their own language 
that which is the noble utterance of the Koran, " There is no 
God but God." I call that a very noble utterance. It runs all 



YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 33 

through the Arabian religion, " There is no God but God." I 
must pause a moment to think of the ethical significance and 
moral power of that saying. For a man must be conceived as 
worshiping that which he believes in. That is the true object of 
his worship; not anything he name*, deity, but what truly he believes 
and trusts in. So it is for the health of a man if truly and con- 
stantly he says, " There is no God but God ;" very great strength 
and help is in it. When tempests or gusts of passion, immoderate 
desires, raging appetites, vagrant feelings, sway us, then we 
shall be stayed, and be able to rule ourselves, and have the glory 
that we are obeyed by ourselves, if we can say strongly, in the 
midst of tempests and gusts, " There is no God but God." We 
shall not bow then to our passions or appetities. Or if we be led 
by ambitions to rise higher in power, to rule over men, to have 
great fame, and perhaps we tremble on the verge of sacrificing 
our manly honor, our strict principles, our noblest sense of perfect 
pure integrity, to gain that high gleaming prize, then it will be 
well if we ask ourselves what truly we are worshiping, and say 
with the Arabs, " There is no God but God." Or if we are pur- 
suing any more ignoble things, the pleasures and comforts which 
riches give, or the ease and luxury which our neighbors' osten- 
tations show, we shall do well to pause and think what we may 
be worshiping — a golden idol, no less an idol because it is golden 
— and say with the Koran scriptures, " There is no God but 
God. Yes, if we be devotees too, if we think we have within us 
the light of true religion, and yet really we be pursuing the 
glories of heaven, the joys of the world to come, or we be try- 
ing to escape the pains of hell, it will be well for us to ask our- 
selves whether we be truly worshiping God, or not rather bowing 
down to our own pleasures and comforts, not the less because 
they are transferred beyond this mortal sphere ; and we shall be 
rebuked and brought back to simple pure worship, if we say, 
" There is no God but God." 

Finally, the Hebrew prophets regarded themselves as in direct 
communication with Yahweh himself. This is important, for 
the Hebrew people were what is called a theocratic people. Per- 
haps the best notion of a theocratic nation is this, — One 
in which not the individual, but the nation, is the religious 
unit. That is to say, the Hebrews' conception, the popular 



34 YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 

conception I mean, of Yahweh was this, that Yahweh favored 
the worshiper not as a man, but as a Hebrew, and that as one 
of the chosen people he was to be gathered under Yahweh's 
almightiness. Now it was a balance against this that the 
prophets considered themselves to come into direct, personal, 
individual relation with Yahweh, and to have his inspira- 
tion in their own souls, and to proclaim, therefore, by authority, 
his word, and say, " Thus saith the Lord." Therein these ex- 
alted teachers of the Hebrew people proclaimed the one absolute 
fundamental necessity and truth of religion, that you, that I, 
stand in the light of God's presence directly ; that we need no 
intervention, no mediator, either by person or by church or 
by book, but that we stand as naked souls unto him, waiting in 
his presence as our eyes do in the glorious sunlight to behold by 
it all the earth. This is what makes religion a support, a joy 
and a life. Emerson says, " God enters by a private door into 
every individual ; " and his emphasis is on the " every individual," 
since to all God comes; not to any chosen one here or anywhere, 
or at any time, but now and to all. And the next emphasis is 
on the "private door"; for why is it private? I suppose the 
seer means that each one has a different door, and that all doors 
alike open to God's presence and favor, not one door more than 
another. Or it may be at different times each man has a differ- 
ent door, as if he were builded from day to day, like a cathedral, 
with new porticoes and new windows for the entrance of heaven's 
light. The door may be perhaps a love of nature, a joy in the 
glorious and grand. Or the door may be a love of persons, a 
love of friends, by which we come to love God, by the scripture 
which our friends live to us or speak to us, — to love God, as 
Augustine said, and our friends in God and our enemies for God. 
Or it may be some great creation or work, or some noble cause, 
that is the door by which God enters. Whatever it be, he enters 
each heart and soul by its own door, and he enters surely if 
there be that door kept for the entrance by a consecrated will, 
striving earnestly to live in the light of the law of God. This I 
say is the sum, the foundation and glory of all religion. Or 
again, the door perhaps may be some great names and glories 
in the past. That is a good door. I dislike it not. Nay, I 
prize it greatly. The beauty of the Scripture, noble prophetic 



YAHWEH IN THE BIBLE. 35 

names, Moses himself, Isaiah, and John and Jesus, and the 
gentle Huss, and many that come to us with prophetic halo 
around their heads, God-made, not man-made, — these may be 
the door by which God enters into us. But however it be, the 
great truth is that now he enters, that now the eternal life is in 
us, and we in it. 

All this history of Yahweh in the Bible shows that religion 
grows noble and high with the growth of man. In the visions 
of the prophets and in the prayers of the people the thought of 
God was growing clearer, higher, nobler, purer continually. 
" Day unto day uttered speech, night unto night showed know- 
ledge." Once the prophets and people thought Yahweh dwelt 
only in one corner of the earth or in the heavens above that little 
territory. But such poor and limited thoughts of God made 
way, slowly but constantly, for higher and spiritual thoughts of 
him, till the psalmist sang, 

" If I take the wings of the morning, 
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
Even there shall thy hand lead me, 
And thy right hand shall hold me." 

Religion never was finished but always is finishing. There is no 
closed revelation. The thought of God, yea, let us say the sight 
of God, grows plainer and mightier and deeper and dearer to 
man's spiritual vision, age by age. With meaning vaster than 
merely to take the scripture page or the past saint however glorious, 
this truth comes — 



With meaning vaster, 

Coming faster 

Than my spirit can record, 

The saint, the set>r, it shows in me ; 

And while I see 

How I am the buried good, 

I stand within the flood 

Of the eternal grace, 

Trembling to know I am God's dwelling place. 



SOME THINGS TO BE SUBE OF. 



Some things to be sure of! Nothing perhaps is more im- 
pressive than the immensity and value of human knowledge. 
It seems sometimes as if there were no end, no beginning, to the 
splendor, the achievements, the glories of the intelligence of 
man. One of the pictures that my youth has left me, very vivid, 
is that of a grand old scholar, wrinkled, bowed, with a great 
noble head covered with a wild shock of long, thick, iron-gray 
hair, through which his eyes gleamed like coals. His learning 
seemed to me like an unfathomable sea; and when perhaps he 
knew not something himself, then he could tell exactly how and 
where to find out about it, which after all is one of the greatest 
parts of knowledge. I remember in my youthful reverence (for 
always I had the joy of having great reverence and affection for 
my teachers) , I used to think that his knowledge was like a moun- 
tain, taking hold of the pivot of the earth, and reaching to 
invisible heights into the heavens. Such sights of human learn- 
ing I say are very impressive ; and also it is affecting, touching, 
glorious, to observe how men have tried to learn, what pains, 
what mighty efforts, what time, what wealth, they have spent to 
acquire information. It was about ten years ago, you know, 
that there occurred a notable total eclipse of the sun to be seen 
in some of our Western States; that is, the moon, not content 
with giving light at night and making the darkness beautiful, 
thought to try her hand at shading the day, and covered up the 
sun entirely in some places so that not a bit of him could be 
seen for some minutes. Now there are some things learned 
men wish to know about the sun which they can find out only 
when thus he is covered up, strange to say. So you know the 
astronomers went to Colorado, at the foot of the Eocky Hills, 
to see the spectacle of the moon veiling the sun's face. 



38 SOME THINGS TO BE SURE OF. 

They came from thousands of miles away, they crossed the ocean 
to come, only to look at the moon hiding the sun for three or 
four minutes. They brought their telescopes so as to see the 
great sight as well as they could; and in order to learn how to 
see it, and to he sure to be all ready, they went to the place 
many weeks beforehand, and lived in little tents or huts, and 
got their instruments all ready, and practiced with them every 
night during all those weeks. And it was arranged, too, that 
one man should look at one point, and another should study 
another point, so that they might learn as much as they could, 
instead of finding afterwards perhaps that all had been looking 
at the same point. And all their pains and trouble and work 
wer,e given, and all the money which it cost was spent too, just 
for the cha/ice of learning something; for if it had been cloudy, 
foggy, rainy, they could not have seen anything, and would have 
had to go home, after all their efforts, no wiser than they came. 
Now comes another total eclipse, to occur in a few months, to be 
visible, if clouds, vapors and winds consent, in the interior of 
Africa ; and already governments and scientific societies are be- 
stirring themselves,to send forth ships and instruments and men 
to the Dark Continent, to see and study the great spectacle. 
Such things are very impressive to me, as I have said, — this 
human struggle to learn. And men have been trying in just 
such ways for hundreds of years, yes, for thousands of years. 
If you were to do nothing but read every minute of every day of 
your lives, without stopping even to eat or sleep, you could not 
read all that has been learned. 

And yet, the things which have been learned number as 
nothing, nothing, compared to the things we know not. The 
things we know not are hundreds of times more than the things 
we know, yes thousands of times, millions of times. There are 
millions of millions more of things which we know not, than 
of things which we know. We know not what the people are doing 
who live on Venus or Mars or Mercury, or any of the other stars. 
We even know not what the men and children are doing who 
live on the other side of the earth; and least of all do we know 
what the people are doing who are on the other side of life, in 
the unseen heavens. Then too, there are many things which 
we can guess at, but we know them not surely. You may think 



SOME THTXGS TO BE SURE OF. 39 

you know what you will do to-morrow, or this afternoon, but you 
can be sure of nothing, because you cannot see one minute 
ahead, and a hundred tilings may happen in the next hour which 
you never drearned of, and these things may change everything, 
so that you may not do at all as you thought you would. Many 
hundred years ago there were many people living in a town near 
the foot of a high mountain in sunny and beautiful Italy. One 
day. one sad and frightful day, the people of the little town were 
as busy as ever, the sun was shining as brightly as ever, or the 
rain falling as gently, or the grapes hanging as rich and purple 
from the vines on the hillside, and the children were playing or 
going to school. Xo doubt the men and women were talking of 
what they would do the next day, or in the afternoon, and they 
thought they could see very plainly what they would do, and the 
children were talking of the games they would play after dinner, 
or after school, or of a romp in the field they meant to have at 
evening, and they thought they could see how it would happen, 
and what a fine time was coming. But suddenly, not very far 
from midday, great flames burst with a mighty roar from the 
top of the mountain, steam and burning gas rushed from the 
crater in the mountain-top, making a noise greater than the 
roar of ten thousand engines. Huge rocks were hurled out into 
the an for hundreds of feet, and came rolling down the moun- 
tain side; rivers of red-hot melted stone poured over the edge of 
the crater, as you have seen water bubbling up from a spring, 
and flowed down the slopes, covering all the green fields and 
lovely places with fire. Ashes were thrown out of the blazing 
hole so fine, and so great in quantity, that in a very few min- 
utes they gathered in the air like huge black clouds spreading 
out for many miles, and shutting out the sunlight as much as if the 
sun had set at midday, so that very soon it was as dark as night, 
and the ashes as blinding as a thick fog. Then the ashes began 
to fall in showers like gray snow, and they fell down on the 
little town, down on the streets, on the houses, on the gardens, on 
the men who had felt sure of what they would do that afternoon, 
on the children playing who had had no doubt of what romps they 
would have in the fields that evening, down, down, thicker and 
thicker, deeper and deeper. The frightened people ran crying 
into the streets, trying to run away into the open country, fathers, 



40 SOME THINGS TO BE SURE OP. 

mothers, carrying their little infants, or helping and urging 
along the old people, the grandfathers and grandmothers, the 
sick as well as the old, who could hobble only at any time and 
now in their fright hardly could move at all. But the streets 
were all dark, and the blinding ashes filled the people's eyes and 
fell thicker and deeper every moment, so that the poor men and 
women and children lost their way or gave up in despair. Some 
turned back to the houses, some fell tired out into the ashes, as 
travelers sometimes are lost in deep snow, some like soldiers who 
were " on duty," stood bravely still and would not leave their 
posts. The little town was filled with screams and cries. But 
the people could not see each other, only hear the cries coming 
out of the black fog. The ashes fell down on the cries and 
smothered them, on the streets, gardens, houses, and covered 
them all up. They were now very fine, like fine dust, and made 
their way into every little crack and crevice, got in at the windows 
and doors, filled up the rooms and buried the poor people alive. 
All the town was covered up; not a roof of a house, not a tower 
was to be seen where a few hours before there had been so many 
busy people. The ashes covered everything with a gray waste, 
like a desert. After a long time, by wind and rain and sun, 
earth was spread over the ashes, and mixed with them, grass 
began to grow, trees and bushes sprang up over the buried town, 
and at last it looked like any other part of the green field. Men 
forgot the town and could not tell the spot where it had been. 
A few years ago the place was discovered and men began to dig 
in the ground, and at last they dug out the town. They removed 
the ashes from the streets, they opened the houses and cleared 
them of ashes, and they found the bones of the buried people, 
old and middle-aged and children and babies, just as they had 
been caught and drowned in the ashes ; some were standing, some 
were sitting, some on their knees, some lying down; a soldier 
was found standing erect in his sentry box, showing that he had 
been true to his duty at his post. Thus you see how much you 
can think of, but how little of it you can be sure of. The people 
of that place thought that surely whatever might happen to them 
one by one, they would not all die together, and that their little 
city would stand for many years. But they were all gone in an 
hour or two, and the city lasted not the day out. 



SOME THINGS TO BE SURE OF. 41 

I mean not to say of course that we need be afraid that 
any great flame will burst out of the earth and bury this pleas- 
ant city of ours in ashes this sunny day; no; yet it were little 
if this happened, — the eternal stars would not be shaken, nay, 
nor one soul perish. But I mean that we can see only a little way, 
and know only very little. How the questions of children force 
this home on us. The truth is, their questions are just as hard 
to the grown people as they are to the little ones; they puzzle us 
so much that all we can say is, " We know not, we know not." 
Suppose that somewhere, on some star in the great heavens that 
shine every night with thousands of other stars, two angels were 
to stand. Suppose they had eyes which could see everything at 
all distances, no matter how covered up, so that they could see 
through stone walls as through glass or air, and as far as from 
here to the remotest star. Sup2J0se these great beings each had 
a book and a pen, and that one of them should write down all 
the things we know, and even the guesses we make when we 
have no knowledge, and that the other one should write down 
the things we know not. The first would write a long time, to 
be sure; but at last he would make an end, and everything that 
men knew would be written down. But the other one, writing 
down the things we know not, would go on writing forever! 

And yet, I have to say to you that in one way (and it is a 
very great way) we know a great deal more than we know not. 
Let us look at this a little more closely. Bethink you that how 
much one knows depends a great deal on what kind of things one 
knows, and but little on how many things. It is one thing to know 
many things, quite another to know much. It is one thing 
to have many facts at hand, which you can count and say, 
"Lo, how great is the sum of our knowledge;" it is another 
thing to have that knowledge which is wisdom, grace, resource, 
comprehension. Some things lately have forced home on me 
the thought, that there are persons brim- full of what we call 
talent, and yet very unintelligent. To comprehend is to surround 
with yourself, to cast yourself about things, so that they are 
collected, grouped, centered and contained within you ; they are 
then comprised, controlled, and you, the compriser, controller, 
are wise. But if you include not the many things you are 
aware of, but they surround and hedge you in, if you have about 



42 SOME THINGS TO BE SUBE OF. 

you a vast gathering and whirl of things, which stretch far out 
mass on mass, and make a wilderness in which you are a little 
matter dancing with the rest, so that you are not encircling and 
comprehending the things, but they have a sweep around you, 
then you may know things as multitudinous as the sands on the 
sea shore, and as barren too. I knew a man whose knowledge 
was vast; I could see no end of it; and yet he seemed to me to 
know nothing. He was versed wonderfully in all the gadding 
gossip of social life. I never knew anything about anybody 
that he knew not better. He knew everybody's name and history 
and position and fortune and family; he had climbed to the top 
branches of a hundred trees of pedigree; he was full of all the 
dance and freaks and babble of the social currents. He knew 
" wh&i was going on;" — not indeed how the great world was 
going on, either in the heavens or in its place beneath, not " the 
stream of tendency," not the drift of thought, not the strain or 
energy of the world's thinking, not the world's music and poetry 
and love and pathos, not even the humor of the world's amuse- 
ments. These things were unexplored heavens to him. But 
the maze of little events, he explored as with a magic clue. The 
difference is vast indeed between facts that are themselves 
knowledge, and facts that have no import or depth or worth, but 
are wastes of mind. It lies at the very base of wise and noble 
living, and is easy to understand, though not always easy to live 
up to, that whether a man knows much or little depends not on 
the number of things he knows, but on how much they are worth 
knowing. A good man said, long ago, that no one is any wiser 
for knowing the dimensions of a crocodile's tail, because it is no 
matter to any one whether the tail be five feet long or five feet 
and two inches, or whether the creature have any tail at all to 
speak of. Forget not this, that there are many kinds of knowl- 
edge which make no one any wiser. 

Now I think you understand that I am neither playing 
with tricks of speech, nor am inconsistent. You see that there 
are millions of millions of things more which we know not, than 
of things which we know, and yet that it may be true that we know 
more than we are ignorant of, for the things that we know are 
greater perhaps than the things which we know not. And truly 
so they are ; so much greater and grander and dearer that if I 



SOME THINGS TO BE SURE OF. 43 

were to speak with the tongues of angels and go on speaking 
forever, I could not even begin to tell how much greater and 
more noble and beautiful are even a few things which we know, 
than all the things which we know not. So much greater, 
grander, that any one of some things which we .know is 
worth more than millions on millions of things before which we 
bow in our ignorance. To know that we ought to speak the 
truth is a greater thing, and worth more, than all the stars 
together! 

Think how beautiful and splendid must be many things 
which we know not. We know not how the earth looks from 
the moon when it goes sailing through the sky, such a huge 
globe of light, if there be any creatures on the moon to see; 
astronomers tell us that probably it is one of the most transcendent 
sights of all the starry heavens. We know not how the great 
sun pours out its heat for thousands of thousands of years with- 
out cooling in the least. We know not how Saturn's rings look 
from that wondrous planet, nor how Jupiter's nights appear with 
his four moons, nor how things go on on a globe so big, thirteen 
hundred times as large as our earth, nor what peoples and king- 
doms and things and kinds of creatures there may be on the 
stars which fill the heavens. It would be very grand to know 
these things. But to know that we must speak the truth, that 
we ought to love our fellow-men, that we are bound to act justly, 
that we are placed here to be faithful, good, kind, pure-minded, 
industrious, this is greater than to know any one of those splen- 
did things, or all of them together, and millions more of them 
which we cannot even dream of. 

This I tell you, nay, your own souls tell you, if there be any 
power of speech in them that they may answer, namely, that you 
can feel sure that it is better to do right than to do wrong. You 
may not always find it easy to see just what the right thing is, 
but always you can feel sure tuat the right thing is the best thing 
when you have found it. And sure, too, that it is best for you 
to try hard to find it. You cannot tell for one hour ahead what 
will become of you, or what will happen to you, excepting that 
you will be safe whatever happens. You cannot see far into 
this life, nor at all into the other life. At any moment the hour 
may come when you shall lie down, and, if there be time enough 
left, fold your hands, and fall asleep as Stephen did, not awaking 



44 SOME THINGS TO BE SURE OF. 

any more, but lying still in that strange trance of death. It is 
not dreadful or painful or sad ; but it is strange, and we know 
hardly anything about it, or how it feels, or what comes after it. 
But this we know, that whether we live in this country or in 
China or Africa, or whether we live in this world for one minute 
or for fifty years, or whatever may be waiting for us after we die, 
this we know, that it is better to be gentle than rough, better to 
be kind than unkind, better to speak the truth than to tell lies, 
better to be faithful than to be neglectful, better to help others 
than to hurt them. These things, we are sure of. 

Now this sure knowledge is a very grand knowledge. I 
will give three reasons why this knowledge is so very grand, and 
so end my sermon. 

' The first reason is that justice, kindness and love, and all 
kinds of goodness, are what make us happy on this earth, and 
make life so full of gladness and so beautiful. Think for a 
moment how much dear and lovely joy there is. Think how 
wonderful it is that even when there are dark clouds of sorrow, 
they are always edged with some beautiful thing. Why, as I 
look at ycu while I speak to you, or think of you while I sit 
writing for you, often I seem to be suddenly in heaven. Your bright 
eyes, your gentle looks, your kindling smiles, your earnest faces, 
some so fresh and young and fair, some so much lovelier still 
with life's middle-aged or aged beauty, all so sweet, so good, 
why, what great joys they show! How glad they make the 
hearts of you that live near any well of this happiness! Our 
thousands of joyful moments and pleasant things come from 
simple goodness and from nothing else. There is no other source 
of them. If there were no truthfulness, no kindness, no faithful- 
ness, where were the smiles? How could any one be happy if 
he were selfish himself, and every one were selfish, and all were 
cruel and false together? This is the first reason then why it is 
so grand a knowledge to know what right means, this reason 
namely, that it is this knowledge that makes all our precious 
happiness and all life's golden beauty. 

The second reason is, that right is the same everywhere, so 
that when we know what is right we have a knowledge so great 
and mighty that it is true everywhere, and at all times. For if 
it be wrong to tell a falsehood here, it is wrong in China or 
Africa, it is wrong in Jupiter or Saturn, or Mars, or any star. 



SOME THINGS TO BE SUBE OF. 45 

The Infinite Almightiness could not make it otherwise, because 
he is that very fact, and cannot unmake himself. Whatever sort 
of creatures may live in any of the stars that twinkle by night 
in the sky, we may be sure that if they know enough to talk or 
think, they have decided that it is wrong, base and mean to tell 
lies. So you see this is a universal knowledge, as infinite as 
God. There is one kind of climate here where we live, and 
another one in the far south, and still another in the far north; 
there may be climates and strange states of things in other plan- 
ets which we know not, and cannot imagine ; but there is no 
climate and no abode of people where it is not glorious and right 
to tell the truth. And whatever difference there may be between 
our earth and any of the stars, we may be sure that this is the 
same everywhere. So I say that to know the right is to have a 
splendid knowledge. 

The third reason why these simple truths which we know 
are so great, is that they are known to us because we are chil- 
dren of the All-Father, the God arid Father of all, who is 
infinitely good and true. I say this is the reason that we know 
these great things, — because we are of God. Look at this 
earnestly for a moment. "Why is it, think you, that right is right 
everywhere, and at all times? Why is it that what is good, pure, 
kind, loving in spirit here must be so too in all the stars, and 
everywhere? It is because the one Infinite Light who is God 
makes the stars as well as this earth. I say not has made, but 
makes, all the time — makes all creatures as well as you and me. 
And wherever God lives and works, truth and right must be the 
same, because his nature is the same, and he makes things all 
the time just as his nature is, rules and guides all things accord- 
ing to his nature; and as he is infinitely good and true, so truth 
and goodness always are the same, and always the almighty 
things with his Almightiness, — in every house, in every country, 
in every star. Therefore, to know the right is so grand a thing. 
It is to be lifted up to a great height, to receive light direct from 
God, and to feel ourselves to be his children, formed in his image. 

Think what it is to be children of God, and to call our- 
selves so! 

We know that we made not this world, and the sky with 
all its stars ; we are sure of that. ! how sure too that the 
Power which made them all, and made them so beautiful, is the 



46 SOME THINGS TO BE SUEE OF. 

same power that makes them now, in the hollow of whose hand 
they lie! We may be sure that that Power takes care of us 
every moment, all theyoung and all the old, all who here live, all 
in the other life, the same as of all the stars and the earth. We 
may be sure that Power, in some way too great and strange for 
us to see, takes care to keep all the good things, and lets the 
bad things fall to pieces, takes care of good acts, good thoughts, 
good feelings, good words, but makes the bad ones as if they had 
never been. Over us all, over all the men who ever have lived, 
we may be sure this Power has been ruling, helping on the good, 
the pure, the true; we may be sure that it will rule over all the 
men that ever will live, and will take care of the world forever. 
We name the Power. We cannot see it; nay, I will not say 
that, — we have eyes to see it. We cannot tell all about it, nay, 
nor compared to it can we tell much, it is so very great, with- 
out beginning or end. But we name it; and think what it 
means, that we name it! We call the Power, God. We love 
and adore this Power by this Great Name. We are sure that 
whether we know many things or know only a very little, we may 
trust this Power whom we name the Father, who rules over all 
things, all we know, all we guess at, all we hope for, all we know 
nothing of, " with the glory of a Father," without whom not a 
little sparrow falls to the ground. 

" Little Children," take hold of this great knowledge. How 
little we know if we count the things! O! the millions of things 
we know not! If we think of them so, we seem to be buried, 
like spiritual driftings under a great dead heap of things. But 
then think of the things we know, so great and high that they 
are better and grander however few, yea, any one of them, than 
all the unknown millions, and any one of them a knowledge more 
splendid than to know the history of ten thousand suns and all 
planets that revolve around them, and all the people on those 
planets! Then truly we shall go our way every day sure that 
in trying to put this mighty knowledge into our lives, so that we 
may be according to this knowledge gentle and truthful, upright, 
kind, loving and honest, as this knowledge is grander than that 
of all the stars, so with it our lives will be brighter than all the 
starry heavens ; and even if sometimes sad, yet in grief still all 
alight with peace for ourselves, and with beaming helpfulness 
for others. 



SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 



"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do 
they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these."— Mat. vi, 28-29. 

I suppose this text was original with Jesus. Very many of 
the sayings of Jesus, as often I have told you, were current 
maxims among the Jews ; often they were lessons of the scribes 
heard in the schools where the ancient Scripture was expounded 
and morality based on the law and the prophets. Sometimes, no 
doubt, they were flying maxims, ranging from mind to mind as 
birds fly among trees. These Jesus seized, because ho knew a 
good, worthy and useful thing at once, and took it. 'Tis a finer 
sign of greatness to know the beauties that surround us than 
to invent or discover new ones ; for to produce good things may 
have a smack of ambition or pride in it, but to know and take 
good things with homage is pure generosity and admiration. 
As a man either must not breathe or else breathe the ah' which 
is about him, so must a soul have no life or else drink of the 
life which is in the time and people. Whence Jesus, beiug a 
great life in himself, like a great pair of lungs breathed deeply 
of the life about him. Therefore, I say, the sayings of Jesus 
are full of echoes of the old Scriptures, of the sayings of the 
Kabbins, and of the wisdom of the people. Nevertheless he is 
very original, and this originality is in the form in which he 
says things, and in the manner, — a living manner. For a great 
soul takes some common truth, central, like the earth's axis, and 
cries it aloud once more with so living a voice that people start 
and tremble to see how great the thing is which perchance they 
have been repeating since their childhood. Jesus was very 
original in his figures and illustrations. He had the heart and 



48 SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 

the eye of a great poet, which is to say, a great lover of things as 
they are. For only one who loves what is, will have clear sight of 
what ought to be. Jesus had an eye wide open. He saw the 
birds, the flowers, the grain, the tares, the trees, the seeds, and 
all manner of people as they worked, joyed, wept, prayed; and 
of these things he made wonderful stories, the like of which 
never were known before, nor have been since ; for there are no 
illustrations in all the world together like Jesus' parables for 
beauty, grace and force. A society of learned Jews in Paris, au- 
thors of a book called " The Sources of the Sermon on the Mount," 
in which they give many passages from the Old Law and the 
prophets, and from Talmudical writings, parallel to Jesus' 
rnaxims in the Mountain Sermon, find no parallel to these phrases 
about Solomon and the lilies, and they dismiss them with this 
remark, " These verses comprise no moral precept; consequently 
there is no source to trace them from." So here, I think we 
have an instance probably of just Jesus' own way of looking 
about him and of saying things. Suppose we unfold his saying 
a little. As he compares things, so let us follow him. We will 
first look at Solomon and then at the lilies. 

The magnificence of Solomon had become proverbial among 
the Jews, a point of national pride indeed. Nay, beyond the 
nation and country the fame of his glory had gone, as is shown 
by the story of the Queen of Sheba, who from Arabia Felix 
came to see Solomon, drawn by stories of his magnificence; also 
of his wisdom, for this was great fame indeed. So the Queen 
put hard questions to him, which he answered easily, and 
astonished her. But indeed with the splendor of the household 
she was quite overcome; for the account in the book of Kings 
says that when she saw his house and the meat of his table and 
his servants, and his cup-bearers, and the apparel of them all, 
" there was no more spirit in her." And she said to the King, 
" It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and 
of thy wisdom. Howbeit, I believed not the words, until I came, 
and mine own eyes had seen it; and, behold, the half was not told 
me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I 
heard." It is written that she gave proof of her admiration by 
presenting the King with a great store of spices, and precious 
stones, and with one hundred and twenty talents of gold, or near 



SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 49 

seventy-five thousand dollars. But to Solomon this was a trifle, 
and very like he was not to be out-done, but presented her an 
equivalent in some shape, since it is recorded that " Solomon 
gave her of his royal bounty." As to Solomon's money, we read 
that the amount that came to him in a year, in gold, was six 
hundred and sixty- six talents, or near four hundred thousand 
dollars; and this was not the whole, for it was over and above 
that which came from traders and merchants and by other 
ways, says the book of Kings. Having this princely income 
a year, this superb King knew how to apply it grandly. As 
to his own house there are incredible stories, the soberest of 
which is that he had one hundred and four wives. With these and 
all the attendants and servants innumerable, it is no wonder 
that eighty measures of line flour and sixty measures of meal, and 
eighty whole oxen and one hundred sheep, and much game and 
fatted fowls,were the daily supply of his table. He lived in a house 
which had been thirteen years in building, adorned with cedar and 
other beautiful woods, and with hewn stones. Silver was not to 
be thought of for his household utensils and his table service; they 
were of pure gold. He had a throne of rich ivory inlaid with 
gold, and carved lions were around it. And in his house there 
hung five hundred massive targets or shields, two hundred 
large and three hundred smaller, plated with beaten gold. These 
precious targets were for the soldiers who made the body-guard 
of the monarch. He had an army comprising 40,000 stalls of 
horses, so the Scriptures read, and 12,000 horsemen and 1,400 
chariots; also dromedaries. Vast abundance of food was collected 
for the horses and other animals. Also he had a great com- 
mercial navy, from which riches of all kinds flowed to his realm 
and to his own treasury. When he wished to build the temple, 
this rich king levied an army of 30,000 workmen whom he 
employed seven years in building the great structure. All 
manner of precious and costly materials were gathered, elab- 
orate carvings of cedar wood, and profuse gold for the utensils 
of the temple and for the hinges of the doors; and he over- 
laid the house with pure gold and threw chains of gold across 
it. He had two immense cherubim made, carved of olive 
wood. He set in the temple two vast pillars of brass, 85 
feet high and 24 feet around, and on the top of them he set 



50 SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 

chapiters of molten brass. The olive wood cherubim were 20 
feet high, and 20 feet also from tip to tip of the out-stretched 
wings; and when set up in the temple, side by side, the tips 
of their wings touched each other, and the tips of the other 
wings touched the walls on both sides. Even the very floor 
of the house was covered with gold, and the walls with carv- 
ings of cherubim, of trees, and of flowers. Also he made 
many baths of brass for the temple, and besides these, a vast 
sea or brazen basin, called in the Scriptures a " molten sea," 20 
feet in diameter and 60 feet around and 10 feet deep. And 
this vast brass basin stood on twelve brazen oxen, three facin» 
each point of the compass. The basin was a hand-breadth thick, 
and the brim was finely wrought like the cup of a lily. 

This was the wealth and splendor of the king, according to 
Jewish tradition. With this glory and pomp Jesus compared 
the lilies. Suppose we stand with the gentle Nazarene a little, 
and look on the flowers of the field ; nay, let us do as he asked, 
consider of them. He used a strong word, translated consider. 
The Greek word means to learn or observe thoroughly, so as to 
understand. It is as if Jesus said, " We have walked back and forth 
here every day and seen these lilies, but yet, having eyes we have 
seen not. Let us stop now and really see, — consider of them, 
look at them, understand them." Palestine was then a bloom- 
ing and beautiful country; nay, even long afterward, yea, and 
still now we learn from travelers of the lovely flowers of the 
fields in their season, shining white blooms, many to a stem, or 
other kinds that may be called lilies, of rich and varied colors. 
Jesus looked at these. Perhaps they lay like a great tapestry 
woven with silk floss in rich dies; or mayhap, there was only 
one lovely spike that had strayed thither, blooming by the way- 
side. What matters it whether a profusion or one? The 
Master's eye would see the glory of them the same. So he 
stopped and looked awhile, his heart rising, we may guess, 
whither the lilies pointed. And then he said quietly, "What 
beauty, what charm, what perfection! But whence is it? Ah, 
that question maketh every flower a psalm; for we see no toiling 
nor spinning here, and yet, look you now whether Solomon in 
all his glory was arrayed like one of these." 

Dear youth, rabbi, gentle Nazarene, holy wanderer, we will 



SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 5 1 

follow thy thought. We will search what the lily hath to set beside 
Solomon's splendor. We will count its glories as we have told a 
few of Solomon's. First, there is the beauty of form, its lovely 
bell, its delicate petals, its vase nodding on the stem. But is 
this beauty greater than the costly woods and the gold, the 
carvings, the robes and the circling trains in which the King 
was arrayed? Secondly, the lily has delicacy of color, richness 
and beauty too; but were these greater than the silken hues, the 
rich carvings of woods, the gorgeous tapestry, and the ivory tints 
of Solomon's palace? Thirdly, the lily sways on its stem as 
gracefully as if a beam of light had been caught and molded into 
a flowery bell, — the waves of the light changed into an inexpres- 
sible still subtleness, the leap of the light, sixty thousand leagues 
in a second, transmuted to a perfection of confined motion, a 
lovely, swaying slenderness; and not only its movement in the 
breeze is perfection, but each stop or attitude is a seizure of 
delicate curves. Well, were these unequaled by the grace, 
the charm and subtle hues of the carvings of palms and flowers 
on the temple walls by the King's workmen, the 30,000 who seven 
years labored in the structure? I know not. It is sure that 
what men can do is as natural as what the earth pours forth 
untilled. If men can see beauty, their hands are glorious tools 
wherewith to mould it. I cannot say that because God makes 
the lily, therefore it is more beautiful than all Solomon's splen- 
dor; for God made man, and perchance it is greater to make a 
maker of beauty than to make a beautiful thing, and the maker 
who is made may effect a beauty glorious and worthy of his 
heavenly spring of life. Yet I think it is true, as Jesus said when 
he looked at the lilies, that Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these. Why is this true? Let us follow a 
little to see. 

First, the lily is very simple. Jesus, it seems to me, was 
thinking of the pure beauty of a few simple charms compared with 
rich array. Here in the lily is but a comeliness of form, a slen- 
der witchery of grace, having but one color, or with mayhap 
a little shading or a fleck or two of contrasting hues; and that 
is all. Its exquisite perfection is wrought of very little. It has 
a beauty like a few lines in a face, which mean a depth of soul. 
Nothing is heaped up in the flower; it is chaste, pure, with the 



52 SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 

kind of charm which a clear ringing note has, from a silver bell 
or tuneful string, or a pure pipe. It is like a melody wherein 
notes following each other become one, — a pure thought or feel- 
ing. Oh ! I care not what manner of richness there be in profusion, 
how splendid the array, how rolling on one another like waves 
be the adornments, no, nor how well fitted, either, without 
jarring! Still always there will be a beauty in simplicity which 
the gorgeous collection hath not. It is superior beauty, beauty I 
might say in itself, the essence, the living soul of it, which, says 
Milton, "unadorned is adorned the most," because it is so 
perfect that, as it can spare nothing, so naught can be added. I 
would that more we understood this beauty of simplicity which 
is the beauty of the earth and sky, of crystals and flowers, of 
water, stars, tones, eyes, smiles, faces, hands, shapes, motions. 
If such beauties were gathered in houses, in costumes, and in 
manners, we should have the beauty wherewith the lily surpassed 
Solomon's array, as Jesus said. For a profusion of beauties is 
not beauty, perchance; and even if they be well matched and in 
proportion, still if they be over-much, they have not the lily's 
beauty, which is pure perfection. 

Secondly, the be uity of the lily is seen to be in keeping 
with all the conditions around it. It wrongs nothing; it comes 
of no unwholesome root; it has no bad contrasts; it offends no 
one with pity for what it has drawn on. For the earth is made 
for its root, and the soil has its own beauty of freshness, aroma, 
color, substance. Bat not so Solomon's array; for his apparel 
cost many a poor man's garment, and the dye of his robes was 
slaves' blood, and all his array was sucked rankly, as weeds 
grow, from heaps of oppression and taxation. Make me aught 
as fair as you will, heap color on color with harmony, or shape 
on shape with grace, or gather and array soft fabrics and golden 
hangings in which rainbows and sunbeams seem woven, — and 
what then? If they be luxuries, they are not fair. Though 
crimson be beautiful, it is not so when it is a blood stain; no, 
but mournful and horrible. If Bacon be wise when he says " a 
crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, 
and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love," I say it 
is wisdom too that beauties make not beauty, nor fair things 
comeliness, nor pomps magnificence, when these are feasts built 



SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 53 

on fasts, surfeits hung on gripes of hunger, pleasures bred of pains 
and laughs of plaints, and all a flaunting array wrung from the 
labor of other bodies that never taste in their mouths, or in their 
heart or soul, the delicacies and the charms. Therefore the 
lily has a pure loveliness which is heavenly and comes of purity, 
and is not less glorious and divine that it is so simple. But the 
array of Solomon is like the surface of floating tarry or other 
unclean refuse, counterfeiting the iris of pearls, the fire-pied 
opal, the prismatic sun ray, but black underneath and shameful. 
Again, the lily's charms, which before I have mentioned, I 
mean its simple beauties of form, slender grace, and plain soft- 
ness of color — these are a part of the very life of the lily; not 
something put on as colors, carvings, plaitings and over-laying 
of gold in a house. Not so ; the lily's beauties are a part of 
the lily's self. For the lily is clothed with these beauties and 
yet naked. Who can cut into them, or under them, and find 
somewhat underneath on which they lie? Nay, but they are 
through and through the lily, the lovely shape being in every 
atom of the substance, and the graceful delicacy in every part, and 
the colors sinking through the soft cells ; whereby the lily is not 
something adorned, but itself is adornment; and not some- 
thing with shape laid on it, but itself is grace and form. If we 
look at Solomon for the like of this, it is not his apparel or his 
great array whatsoever that we can compare, but only Solomon's 
body; and if I mistake not, the selfish and degenerate life in 
this so great luxury, pride, glitter, flourish and surfeit, could 
build no fine body, neither in shape nor in the bright and clear 
blushes of virtuous health; nor do aught but enervate, degrade, 
misshape and blot the human form divine. Jesus indeed did well 
to say that not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like the 
lilies, since the lily's raiment was but the lily in all its light, 
freedom, beauty and very life. But Solomon's raiment was put 
on, hiding a body wherein vile wantoning had dug bad seams run- 
ning with the tears of the poor. Ay, he spoke well, that nature- 
loving Nazarene, the lover of flowers and birds and trees and 
grain, sheep, mustard-seeds and men, he spoke well; for there is 
no divine beauty that can be taken off and hung on a peg; and 
if the vesture of Solomon were in a thousand parts and every 
part a vesture, gleaming with gems and gold and Tyrian dyes, 



54 SOLOMON AND THE LILTES. 

they could not array the body as the shape and color of health 
do, nor make the face noble, which is the beauty of the face, nor 
be true magnificence, nor aught but dross and waste before the 
beauty of the lily, which is only itself. 

Again, there is this very lovely charm about the lily's beauty 
that there is no rivalry in it. It is not pitted against any other 
lily or flower; it seeks excellence, but not to get the better of 
another or to set itself off by contrast. Nay, in no way it thinks 
of any other, but simply of being beautiful; and this is a kind of 
worshipf ulness, an uplooking toward infinite beauty, a holy pur- 
pose of life, or perhaps better I may say, a holy purpose to live, 
without thought to live better than another, but only to live 
according to life, which is beauty and glory and strength. But 
what were Solomon's pomps, parades, gauds, and fringes but 
comparison of himself with his nobles or with other princes, 
that not merely he might shine, but outshine others? Oh this 
is a mean and foolish temper, besmirched with envy if there be 
any richer than ourselves, and beclouded more still with all the 
envies which thus are caused in others whose humor or simplicity 
is turned awry and their bosoms filled with heart-burning. In 
my soul I abhor the temper which has no peace in excellence, 
but only in surpassing others, and no joy in beauty unless it be 
greater than some others have, and no thanks for fortune unless 
it grow against the shadow of some other's failure. It is un- 
lovely to be happy that we leave others behind or that they can- 
not keep pace with us. This is not beauty, nor splendor, nor 
fair raiment; and when any glory has this temper with it, a 
king with all the glory is not arrayed like one of these lilies. 

Finally, if the lily be charming in its beauty because in no 
way it thinks of itself, not wishing to compare itself with 
another, or to win in a race, this is the same as to say that it 
thinks not of others to be admired by them. Nay, it would 
bloom the same in a wilderness; and this fact an old Hebrew 
poet saw to be divine beauty and blessedness in the herb of the 
field, which he says springs the same in the desert, in the 
wilderness where there is no man. An English poet has sung of 
the flowers that "blush unseen," that they "waste their sweet- 
ness on the desert air." But therein he has had not the Master's 
heart, the soul of Him of Galilee, the spirit of the Nazarene, who, 



SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 55 

standing by the wayside and comparing the lilies with Solomon, 
bethought him, I must believe, that the sweetness and beauty of 
the lily were its reasons for being, and that beauty was never a 
waste, but great riches, although but in a flower's bosom, unwit- 
nessed, unvisited. The Nazarene, I say, saw that this sincerity 
arrayed the blossom in more divinity than " doth hedge a king." 
Comparing the flowers with Solomon, who in purple and fine 
linen sat for admiration on his ivory throne, and would have 
bemoaned himself or have squatted perhaps on the turf if no 
throngs had been by to applaud his high seat, Jesus said that 
the King in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. A 
poet has thought like this about his verse, counting it praise and 
greatness if the verse be true and sincere. He says, — 

"Ah, 'tis an easy thing 

To write and sing, 

But to write true, unfeigned verse, is very hard." 

The poet means that verse must not be robed, as it were 
for multitudes to shout around, nor adorned that any may 
praise, but only true and unfeigned and for itself. And truly, 
whatever is painted or put on for another's eye, and elsewhere left 
in darkness, hath no lily's beauty. 

Look now at the gorgeous King and the simple lily, and 
consider them as the Master's saying has set them before us. 
What garments have we seen, the lily clothed withal? What 
but simple beauty of form and chaste brightness of color and a 
swaying slenderness of grace, and these all through it and in it, 
the color and the shape not being spread on it, but living 
throughout it; and to all these we have to add the thoughts that 
breathe in it, which I have set forth, — that it is simplicity; and 
that its sweet beauty is in keeping with all its environs and 
united with them in peace; and that naught is put on by it any 
more than made by toiling and spinning, but only grown; and 
that in its honied heart there is no rivalry, nor doth it bloom to 
surpass others; and that it seeks not applause nor fame, but only 
to be what it is, nor would be a waste even in a wilderness. 
And what withal was Solomon arrayed? With what but heaps of 
things that were not of him but were put on him, and he no 
better for them, and other men worse and stricken with woes. 
Truly Jesus was right and the lily was the beautiful being, and 



56 SOLOMON AND THE LILIES. 

Solomon in all his glory not arrayed like one of these. ! to 
value the right thing! 0! to prize the precious! 0! to love 
the lovable! 0! to adore the adorable! This is the secret of 
life. How many go straying far away, prizing what has a taint, 
valuing the worthless, loving what truly is hateful and makes 
us so, adoring what is but an idol made with hands. But the 
secret of life, the secret which lifts life high, is to take what 
truly is set forth by God to be taken and not to be left or put 
away; and to love what he hath made akin in value to the 
human heart, and to worship what comes of his divinity and 
is everlasting, which is simplicity and pure beauty, and kind 
affection, and the love of goodness for itself, and a comradeship 
with all without wishing to make any seem less or be less. 
These are the first things. "Whoso knows them, that they are 
first, and follows after them, stands close by the Son of Man from 
Nazareth while he looks on the lilies and says that even Solo- 
mon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 



THE PERFECT. 



"Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." 

—Matt. 5: 48. 

This text has been misunderstood often, for lack of looking 
at the context. What Jesus commands is not perfection. This 
is impossible to us. He means a wide and all-embracing kind- 
ness, like the divine love. Paraphrasing freely the passage from 
the forty-third verse to the end of the chapter, Jesus speaks thus: 
" You know that some old teachers have allowed you to hate 
your enemy, if you will love your neighbor. But I tell you that 
your enemy also is to be loved, and that, if persons use you ill, 
you must pray for them ; for you are the children of the heavenly 
Father, and it is thus that he acts. Doth he not make his sun 
to rise on the good and on the bad alike, and send his rain the same 
on the just and un the unjust? If ye love them that love you, 
and give only the salutes which yt rtceive, ye do no more than all 
men do, evtn bad men and aliens. But ye shall be perfect as 
your heavenly Father is ptriect, and aeal gently with the good 
and the bad alike, just as he sends sunshine and rain on the 
just and on the unjust." This text, therefore, teaches the duty 
of charity and forgiveness, with the divine perfection of compas- 
sion as our guide, help, and aim. 

The term, " Perfection," was used much among the Jews. 
The writings of the Rabbins speak of perfect charity, perfect 
penitence, perfect prayers, perfect sacrifice, perfect faith, perfect 
covenant, perfect worship or religion. The Israelites were a per- 
fect people, they said, after receiving the law from Moses. An 
Epistle of the New Testament says, " Perfect love casteth out 
fear," The Rabbins taught that our love of God must be perfect, 



58 THE PEEFECT. 

and sometimes defined this perfect love as that which was the 
same in all conditions, in good or ill fortune, continuing to bless 
God in pain or in pleasure alike. 

My text, I say, commands not us to be perfect; for how is 
that possible? We cannot be perfect outwardly, in our deeds; for 
how be sure always to do the wise and right thing, unless we 
have perfect knowledge and understand all things? Neither can 
we be perfect inwardly, in all our impulses, desires, affections, 
passions, which are so hard to rule and guide; for how can every 
rising feeling, every sudden emotion; flash of thought, inclination, 
craving, response, vehemence, thrill and throb, be without blemish, 
unless we be perfect in nature, — which surely we are not ! There- 
fore, perfection is not required by any wise precept, like that of 
my text; nor will any power, human or divine, judge us by that 
standard. 

But now a strange fact comes forth. While perfection in 
act or impulse cannot be expected or required of us, yet conscience 
seems to exact it in every instance. If we be not perfect, it would 
seem that we shall sin sometimes; yet conscience blames us not- 
withstanding. We cannot do wisely and righteously always, yet 
we reproach ourselves whenever we do evil. Whence is this 
strange contradiction? What means this law in us by which we 
seem driven to exact of ourselves what, if we interpret aright our 
constitution, God does not require of us? Strange that, if we be 
imperfect by nature, we should be stung by remorse at every 
falling-short of perfection. 

But, now, if this be stated in another way, it will not seem 
strange; the difficulty will vanish. The truth is this: that, 
although perfection is not required of us, it is required that we 
should be satisfied ivith nothing less and count naught else worthy 
to be our moral end. Therefore, if we can be satisfied with 
nothing less than the perfect, clearly every defect of will, act, or 
impulse, will be attended with dissatisfaction. 

This paradox burns in us, — If, being imperfect, we also were 
satisfied with the imperfect, we no longer should be imperfect. 
For imperfection can mean only that our actual condition is below 
that which is our true ideal; but if imperfection itself were this 
ideal, then it were not imperfection for us, because it were what 
we were made to be. 



THE PERFECT. 59 

To state this plainly without paradox: If we were allowed to 
be satisfied with aught less than perfection, less than the wholly 
right, the absolutely good, the eternally and perfectly righteous, 
then this lower order would be the truth and the right to us, and 
the end of our being would be attained. 

Perhaps this condition of us, by which we are enmeshed in 
imperfection by nature, and yet by reason of that nature cannot 
be at peace with aught less than perfection, may be made plainer 
by an illustration. It is as if we were travelers on a long road, 
stretching far before us, So far away that the journey seems 
endless, rise the towers of a beautiful city, like the vision that 
broke on the mind of Wordsworth's " Solitary," when he stood 
on a mountain crag after a great storm had passed, and "a 
single step that freed him from the skirts of the blind vapor 
opened to his view" — 

" Glory beyond all glory ever seen 

By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ! 

The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 

Was of a mighty city— boldly say 

A -wilderness of building, sinking far 

And self- withdrawn into a wondrous depth, 

Far sinking into splendor— without end ! 

Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, 

With alabaster domes, and silver spires, 

And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 

Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright 

In avenues disposed ; their towers begirt 

With battlements that on their restless fronts 

Bore stars, — illumination of all gems !" 

We are only on the road. The road is lost in night as far 
behind us as the gleaming city lies before us. Therefore it is 
not asked of us that our journey be accomplished already and we 
joining in the songs of the multitude at the gates whose music 
floats out to us even at this distance. But, with that vision in 
our eyes and that sound in our ears, we reproach ourselves if 
every step be not toward those seraphic citadels, if we loiter or 
faint in the march, or look to right or left, or have ears for any 
siren's song. 

We cannot be perfect in act or in soul, and yet we can be 
satisfied with nothing else. Herein, we bear the trace of God's way 
of creation, of his nature in us and of his method with us. By 
the imperfection of our deeds and desires, we recall our origin 
and the long and slow journey we have made from brute life. 



60 THE PERFECT. 

But by the perfection of our moral aspiration, naught less than 
which satisfies us, we show the divine source of that enormous 
travail, that endless evolution, — endless forward, endless back- 
ward, having no stop and no beginning, — by which we emerge 
from existence to life, from sensation to thought, love, hope, and 
worship, yearning toward the divine Being, the Eternal, Immu- 
table, Almighty Fatherhood of God from which we spring. It 
cannot be required that we be perfect; but that we can be satis- 
fied with naught else is the secret of religion within us, of the 
worship of the One Infinite Life, Thought, Love, Power, Holiness, 
Beauty, Truth, Mercy, — Eternal, Almighty, Pervading, Tran- 
scendent, Immutable, Creating, Preserving, Redeeming, Judging, 
Condemning, Blessing, Inspiring, Revealing. We cannot lose 
this worship, and live. The imperfection which we are has that 
reminiscence of its source of life that it adores Perfection in 
which we live and m< ve and have being, and thus is set in 
( urselves an ideal of ourselves which will be satisfied only with 
the perfect, — that is, never satisfied, and 1< ve only the divine, 
— that is, love with incr< abing j< y f< n v< r. H< re will I read you 
a noble poem by Wasson: — 

IDE L . 

Angels of growth, of old in that surprise 

Of your first vision, wild and sweet, 
I poured in passionate sighs 
My wish unwise 

That ye descend my hrart to meet, — 
My heart so slow to rise ! 

Now thus I pray : Angelic be to hold 

In heaven your shining poise afar, 
And to rny wishes bold 
Reply with cold, 

Sweet invitation, like a star 
Fixed in the heavens old. 

"Did ye descend, what were ye more than I? 

Is't not by this ye are divine, — 
That, native to the sky, 
Ye cannot hie 

Downward, and give low hearts the wine 
That should reward the high? 

Weak, yet in weakness I no more complain 

Of your abiding in your places. 
Oh, still, howe'er my pain 
Wild prayers may rain, 

Keep pure on high the perfect graces 
That stooping could but stain I 



THE PERFECT. 61 

Not to content our lowness, but to lure 

And lift us to your angelhood, 
Do your surprises pure 
Dawn far and sure 

Above the tumult of young blood, 
And star-like there endure? 

Wait there,— wait, and invite me while I climb ; 

For, see, I come !— but slow, but slow ! 
Yet ever as your chime, 
Soft and sublime, 

Lifts at my feet, they move, they go 
Up the great stair of time. 

But how shall we keep the Perfect before our thoughts, 
to live in the light of it? There are many ways or helps: I will 
speak of four. 

We ought to look at the glorious works of God, and think 
about them. It is not possible to say what the perfection of 
physical glory and loveliness may be. Perhaps on this earth we 
tread but on the threshold of inner chambers filled with unimag- 
inable sublimities and beauties, of which the grandeurs cf moun- 
tain, sun, and sea give us no image. It is certain there are 
places in the heavens where sights of splendor and majesty are 
visible surpassing all our earthly skies, by day or night. Never- 
theless, this little earth of ours, whether we think of its sublime 
and awful scenes, or of its grand and wide beauties, or of its del- 
icate and hidden loveliness, surpasses all we can express in hymn 
and music. It loads the mind, even unto staggering, with weight 
of feeling. The infinity of the starry heavens; the grandeur of 
mountains; the majesty of the sea; the shades of interminable 
forests, in which immense rivers are flowing; and the thicket, the 
tree-tops, the marsh, and the water, all teeming with radiant 
life,— 

"Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf, 
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, 
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, 
Molten together, and coruposingthus, 
Each lost in each, a marvelous array ; " 

the roar that pours over the earth like music, so vast that sounds 
of all kinds and of every pitch blend in perfect harmonies, — winds, 
rains, torrents, the grinding of ice, the plash of waves, the cla- 
mor of ocean, the trumpet of thunder, night's insects and the 
morning carols of birds, blent with the wide murnmr when Zephyr 
tunes her harp of tree-tops, all these combined in sound 



62 THE PEKFECT. 

" That ceases not to flow, 
Like smoke, along the level of the.blast, 
In mighty current," — 

such ravishment of eye and of ear as these things fill the earth 
withal, every day, well may he called Perfect, well may wrap the 
mind in thoughts of that Perfection of Eternal Life of whom all 
this unspeakable beauty is but the appearing! 

Drink deep of the earth's beauty, and fall asleep on that 
innocent wine: thou wilt dream Perfection. 

Another instructor in the thought of the Perfect is Love. 
Ay, and a wondrous instructor! It seems all but the only thing 
in which pure perfection dwells in man or earth. The earth is 
full of sunshine, yes, but of wild storms too, and freezing cold. 
There is fruitfulness and plenty, yes, and droughts, floods, ravages 
of in sects and of fire. And where find a man who is all perfect? 
The noblest have their frailties. Nay, even in what issue if not 
Love, will you come on perfection? The greatest achievments 
have some blots of failure. The most glorious works wrap up 
errors. The noblest poem, domed like the sky for grandeur, has 
ambuscades of imperfection. No intelligence, no power or will, no 
morality, force of enterprise, industry, but has some flaw, nor was 
ever any seen among men, nor could be. But, unless eye and mind 
mislead us much, sometimes we do see examples of perfect Love. 

This happens in high places and low alike. Love is not 
cold in rags, nor any warmer under a king's ermine. Anywhere 
it may be perfect. At least, we do see instances of love in which 
no blemish appears to our eyes, nay, even to minute searching; 
and this is sensible perfection. We do meet forms, — or read of 
them, which is only to meet them with the mind's eye, — of 
devotion, faithfulness, tender thoughtf illness, so encompassing, 
that to look on such love is like a sight of the Infinite sky ; for 
in the day of joy this love is a heaven of light ; and in the night 
of sorrow, a firmament of heavens — "Creation widened." 

These thoughts have come to me sometimes when I have 
seen transient looks, but illimitable, brush with their wings a 
parental face; or when I have seen an aged countenance in whose 
serenity Love shows perfected by exercise, — perfect at least 
beyond all my ken of blemish. For these sights I give thanks; 
for then I believe in the Perfect. 



THE PERFECT. 63 

An other way to travel to the perfect is to look at our fellow- 
men. Behold first then march in great congregations, nations, 
races, continents of peoples. For this will teach us the law of 
the providence of God, whereby humanity is led like a child and 
schooled to virtue. All about us are evils, distressing, •mon- 
strous, — wars, cruelties, injustice, deceit, sickness and pain, 
agonies of love, loss, failure, disappointment. It is not easy — 
nay, close at hand, who is able? — to sink these dire things in Per- 
fection, and leave no taint of foul color, no ripple of disturbance. 
But look at the march of the race, at the long stretches of time 
in which facts group themselves to laws before our wondering 
eye, and you will see a transporting glory, even Infinite Perfect- 
ness. You will discern that the tendency of things is away from 
the evil, that the seal of life is set only on the good, and that the 
sure effect of all things is "to make the bad deed as if it had 
never been." Though right be "forever on the scaffold, wrong 
forever on the throne," you will see that scaffold " swaying the 
future," and God "standing in the shadows, taking care of his 
own." The tendency of things is illuminated with the Perfection 
of their Divine Home, and unto their home they must come 
like rivers to the sea. When our look is turned not on the 
rough places in the road, or on falls by reason of them, but 
on that city whither the road leads, we go always singing and 
praising. 

Turn to your fellow-men, also, to see and to rejoice in the 
best and holiest of your kind. Bring your eye from its sweep 
of the whole, to see the greatest and best persons. As I write 
in the early morning, I hear a voice singing in the house. 
It gives me a sudden sense of the Infinite. Such did the sight 
of a star give Wordsworth, it is said, when the poet laid his 
ear to the earth to listen for an approaching diligence, and 
his eye caught the gleam of the heavenly jewel hanging on 
a hill-top. Such sense of the Infinite and the Perfect do the 
great and holy spirits of the earth give us, — the voices of the 
prophets, the far-shining saints. They are witnesses of some- 
thing holy; and, if they seem to fulfill our dream, their humility 
and sorrow and aspiration, their u Why call ye me good? 
There is none good but One, that is God," give us a dream of 
Hitir d, earn. — Eternal and Perfect Holiness. 



64 THE PERFECT. 

Turn to your fellow-men still more nearly, looking at the 
persons who are about you and live with you. Here, though 
they all are very imperfect (and happy art thou, if thou seem 
to thyself most imperfect of all,) thou wilt find each has some 
one grace, at least, in which he comes well-nigh perfection; nay, 
it seems sometimes as if that one grace lived in him with the 
whole perfectness of heaven. In one, thou wilt find a devotion, 
in which love and duty blend to a rare beauty of self-forgetful 
affection; in another, thou wilt see the perfection of cheerful, 
serene, uncomplaining endurance ■ in another, thou wilt discover 
high untainted truthfulness that nothing can frighten or break ; 
thou wilt behold in another the perfect strength of a will to do, 
to restrain, to undertake; thou wilt discern in another inexhaust- 
ible benevolence, pity, generosity; in another, thou wilt descry a 
delicate sense of duty and a tender conscience of heavenly quality; 
in another, thou wilt recognize a rare completeness of gentle 
humility, joined with self- discipline ; thou wilt mark pure moral 
courage in another; thou wilt distinguish sincere piety in another; 
thou wilt look in another on justice, and in another on forgive- 
ness, and on self-control in another. Look for these good things, 
love them, feed thy soul on them; and thus, if thou have many 
companions, thou wilt surround thyself with many graces. For 
each will give his best for thy asking, if thou hast eyes to see the 
best; and it will be very nigh perfection, and all will make a 
heavenly atmosphere in which thou canst live. Thou wilt be 
beyond reach of the worst sorrows, and wilt know how to purify 
grief. Thou wilt hear better the sounds from that city which is 
before thee; and the perfections thou hast learned to keep in thine 
eyes will be like light from the city, forming a little chambered 
space about thee and moving with thee. 

Another way to believe in perfection, is to help make it. 
very good, very worthy and valuable appear to our eyes the 
good things we have helped to build up! When devoutly we 
have endowed anything with our earnestness, our labor, our 
thoughtfulness, all or many of our virtues, perhaps, combining 
in work, — then the object shows to our eyes mainly its great and 
glorious traits. Little blemishes sink from sight, or if not from 
sight, from mind. The high and fine qualities seize us, and 
create a blessed satisfaction. Grumblers are idlers. The critics 



THE PERFECT. 65 

who are but fault-finders are languid beholders of other 
persons' labors. Whoever helps to make the world beautiful 
and gracious, will find it very beautiful and very gracious indeed. 
Clouds of perfection will cover the earth, as if all life were 
a morning, and all experience a dawn of light. This is the same 
however cramped the lot be, even though we work in house-service 
or shop-service, or live in a little corner of humblest cares; for if 
you open a room fully to the sun-light, it is as much sun-lighted 
as all out-doors. The chamber is then a piece of the sun-suffused 
heavens, and witnesses of them. Great world-helpers have been 
great world-lovers. What they long and labor to help they behold 
so over-shadowed with perfection as to be worth all devotion. 
The world looks rich, the earth beautiful, the heavens worshipful 
and humanity glorious to such. I speak of Vincent De Paul, 
Monteliore, Mrs. Fry, Florence Nightingale, Octavia Hill, John 
Howard, Peter Cooper, Garrison, Pasteur, and many other per- 
sons as devoutly great, whether pushed forward into men's sight 
or hidden in lowly lot. To these souls comes knowledge of the 
Perfect. 

Here now are four ways of coming to think of Perfect- 
ness — that we look and see the glory and beauty of Creation, 
that we delight in our fellow-m n by looking on the march of 
mmkind and by knowing the good qualities of those who live 
with us, that \v j rejoice in perfectness of human love, and that 
we try to bring about goodness and make a fair garden around 
us. For if we do these things, we shall know that it is indeed 
a garden in which we walk and work; and God will "walk in the 
garden," as of old. 

Now consider how needful it is that we should have this 
thought of Perfection and hold to it. Without it, we were as in 
a waste of waters, having forgotten whence we came, nor know- 
ing whither to go or by what star to steer. But ! to know our 
home that it is the Perfect, and to know that we are but on a 
voyage of discipline, and that we shall come to our home, and 
that we have the nature of that home in us by our love of it and 
mindfulness of it, and that we may visit it continually in thought 
and faith, and by knowledge of its image^in the goodness around 
us! What a stay and joy, what a mighty strength and health 
and hope is that faith and thought, the Perfect. Here we are 



66 THE PERFECT. 

placed in imperfection, yea, and often sadness of imperfection, 
sad traits, loneness, losses, wrong suffered — which is bad, 
wrongs done — which is worse, weakness, pain, disappointment, 
struggles, failures, fallings, risings but to fall again, faintings 
and staggerings, fears, sorrows, sins. Yes; but with them, 
many helps too, joyful things, beautiful and gracious, if we 
will keep our eyes open to see them and know that they are 
good. And best, brightest and strongest of all is that divinity 
within us, the thought of Perfection. That thought makes 
every joy great by showing us what the joy comes of, and it lifts 
us above all the wrong and strain and strife, or rebukes us if 
we stay in them, and gives us the steadiness of the thought of 
Eternal Quietness, the Perfectness of Law and Life. 0! 'tis 
the heart's need that the hymn sings, — 

"Make it mine 
To feel, amid the city's jar, 
That their abides a peace of Thine, 
Man did not make and cannot mar.' - 

This peace and power we have by the thought and faith that 
there is the Perfect One, yea, and his Perfection spread out, how- 
ever we toil yet in the transient and unfulfilled. A Shepherd 
once kept his flocks and herds in a poor pasture, and a traveler 
made light of the land and told the man 'twas but a rocky and 
wretched place. "Not so," said the Shepherd, " there be stones 
enough, to be sure, and the sheep must browse well to make their 
wool ; but it is not wretched for all that, for this country has a 
great King." "A King!" quoth the traveler, "Ay, but his court and 
city are far enough away from you, poor fellow." "Why, thus it 
is, Sir," answered the Shepherd, "So long as I know there is the 
King and the Court, I am happy; and if you like to listen 
to this pipe, Sir," quoth he, "I will show you that I can play the 
King's song, though the pipe be homely enough and made from 
yon scrub of an Elder." 

It is needful to us, yea, the life of life, the strength of 
strength, the joy of joy, to have hand-hold of the Perfect, and 
be with it, child-like. There is no peace for us but with the 
thought of Perfection; and with this, there is no war. We may 
be carried any whither and live in any place, in any bare and 
hard place whatever, and yet with the faith of the Perfect in us, 



THE PERFECT. 67 

and the knowledge, like to the Shepherd's, that God is, we shall 
be rich and strong. And now behold again, for this needful 
faith, what angels come to minister to us, that we may learn the 
faith and be blest. First comes the sublime beauty of earth and 
sky — a saffron-winged angel with head-bands of stars, yea, and 
a voice of music, singing knowledge of land and sea and living 
creatures and fiery heavens. Then comes mankind, that is such 
"a piece of work," "noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form 
and moving express and admirable, in action like an angel, in 
apprehension like a god" — truly an august minister, proclaiming 
Perfection by the concourse of all peoples in the march of man 
and by the gentle and sweet goodness or great heroism of 
humble persons who live with us. Then comes human love — 
and blest is any one if this angel abide with him, — making such 
music on the thousand-stringed harp as is a symphony named 
Perfection. Then comes the best and most clear-voiced of the 
angels, albeit very lowly-voiced and with meek face, — our own 
good deeds and simpleness of heart. For if we love the good, 
the true, the fair, and try to bring it about, we shall have 
sight of the Infinity, Perfection and Eternity of Kighteousness. 
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God? 



ABIDING GOB'S TIME. 



"Abide under the Shadow of the Almighty."— Psalm 91, 1. 

The Shadow of the Almighty, — a beautiful thought! — as if 
Divinity stretched forth over the earth like an adumbration! or 
as if the earth with its skies, atmosphere, garniture of clouds 
and pomp of stars, were a semblance of Divinity, the Shadow of 
God. 

But where, then, must the Shadow of the Almighty be? 
Surely where the earth is, and always there where the earth is. 
For this trundling globe cannot roll out of the Shadow of God, 
and again roll into it. Can we think of the Shadow of the Al- 
mighty as stretching over a part of the earth's path, but from 
another part absent? or as striping the earth's orbit, if so I may 
speak, so that the earth rolls through alternate bands shadowed 
and unshadowed, now in the Shadow of God and now again 
out of it? Surely we cannot think or imagine after that manner; 
no, but that always the earth is in the Shadow of the Almighty, 
and that the Presence always covers the earth where it is. 

In this Shadow the text says we shall abide. But where 
can we abide but on the earth where it is, and where on the 
earth but on this part of it where we are? and in what moment 
but in this present hour of morning or noon or evening or night 
which now is on this portion of the earth? The present instant 
is in the Shadow of the Almighty. This hour is the Shadow of 
Eternity. And all that herein is, all the assemblage of things, 
all the joys and pains, beauties, glories, grandeurs, all small and 
all great, all motions, circles, attractions and mysteries and 
powers, are the Shadow of the Almighty. Therefore to abide 
under the Shadow of the Almighty is only to know where we are, 
and to have a religious sense of abiding where we are, to make 
our home herein and to be at one in spirit with all the things that 



70 ABIDING GOD'S TIME. 

inhabit around us j and to find no fault, but do our duty with 
piety, counting every humble duty stately and holy, since it is 
in the Shadow of the Almighty, and has being and command- 
ment from God. 

This is my subject in this sermon, that we ought to abide 
God's time, and know that we are in his Shadow, and take up 
whatever is by our side in that Presence, and hasten not, and 
despise nothing nor throw anything away, and be not filled with 
ambitions for proud things, but take all duties reverently; be- 
cause all things are overshadowed with God. 

A poet* has enshrined this piety in verse. The first stanza 
of the poem runs thus: — 

"If I were told that I nmst die to-morrow, 

That the next sun 
Which sinks should bear me past all fear and sorrow 

For any one, 
All the fight fought, all the short journey through, 

What should I do? ' 

This question of the poet is religious. It touches that piety 
which lights up the present moment and shows the passing in- 
stant divine. What shall we answer to the poet's question? If 
we had to meet it, if we knew that to-morrow we were to die, 
what would be our answer? What should we do to-day? Let 
us try to answer the question, and then I will give you the poet's 
answer. 

Now we know that, as the future throws its shadow to the 
present, so also it casts forward an effect on the present. I mean 
that we cannot act to-day if we know that one thing is to happen 
to-morrow, as we shall act if another thing is to occur. We 
must govern our actions in part by foresight, for this is simple 
wisdom. If we know an earthquake is to happen to-morrow, 
surely we shall conduct ourselves in one way, but in another 
way if we know that a bright and gala festival is to be celebrated. 
Therefore, if, as the poet conceives, we knew we were to die to- 
morrow, no doubt our actions to-day would sort with the knowl- 
edge, so that we should act not quite the same as if we knew we 
were to sing or dance to-morrow evening. We should not pre- 
pare for that voyage out of sight into the illimitable sea as we 
should make ready for a pleasure trip in a coasting yacht. Yefc, 

* Susan Coolidge. 



ABIDING GOD'S TIME. 71 

though it be granted that thus we should make some difference 
in behavior if we knew we were to die to-morrow, still there is a 
deeper sense in which we should make no difference at all, but 
seek to act the same whatever our knowledge of any thing to be- 
tide; because the present moment is the same, and this day is 
not made the less of what it is to the eye of duty or religion by 
anything that the morrow will bring when it comes. Therefore, 
though the knowledge of the sober fact of our departure being 
so near (I say sober fact, not miserable nor frightful, but only 
serious, as many a joy is serious) — though, I say, the sense of 
this soberness close at hand might add to the day's duties some 
tasks of preparation, some letter to be writ, last arrangement to 
be made, directions given, kind words said, advice offered, or 
exhortation or persuasion or messages, yet these were but duties 
added; and if time served for all the common duties of the day 
beside, then there they would be waiting for us with all their 
customary warrant. Therefore if the mother, the father, the 
brother or sister, or son or daughter, knew they were to die to- 
morrow, what should they do? What but go on with all the kind 
and gentle duties of the day as much as might be? They should 
cook the food, lay the table, draw the water. They should spread 
meat and drink. They should call the household. They should 
invite the guest. The meal should be cheered. Smiles should 
be given. Conversation should be made. They should go to 
their business. They should direct their affairs. They should 
sit at their desks. They should buy and sell. They should 
clothe and teach the children, direct them, sooth their sor- 
rows, cure their pains, send them to school, welcome them back. 
The floor should be swept. The flower-beds should be watered. 
The blossoms should be gathered. The rooms should be gar- 
nished. The lamps should be trimmed. They should direct 
manufactures. They should govern their mills. They should 
dispatch and forward, receive and store away. They should re- 
turn at evening and sit down in their home. They should break 
bread and give thanks. They should keep the study hour, read- 
ing the historian, the poet, the Bible. These things they should 
do the same if they knew they were to die to-morrow. For 
what is to happen to them to-morrow has no effect on the beauty, 
dignity, and duty of these offices to-day or on the claims of 



72 ABIDING GOD'S TIMfi. 

others that they should do these offices, and " occupy " in the 
world, though it be but for one more day — as Abraham Daven- 
port said, under the lowering night setting in at high noon, that 
he knew only his Lord's commands to occupy till he came, and 
so called in the candles, saying, "Let God do his work, we will 
see to ours." 

Here I can but think of the aged; for they perforce in their 
daily living must answer one way or another the poet's question. 
They can look but a little forward on this earth, so little that 
they may be said to know they are to die to-morrow. And what 
should they do? What but go on day by day as all their lives 
they have done if they have lived well. Eichter says that "what 
makes, old age so sad is not that our joys cease, but our hopes." 
But this I think not true and helpful, nay, an untrue and not 
religious saying. And I like no better Dr. Johnson's remark, 
that age is "the period, alas, when our chief happiness is 
drawn from memory of the past "; and equally I think our own 
poet fails when he says, "How far the gulf stream of our 
youth may flow into the arctic region of our life where little else 
than life itself survives." Little else than life? What a saying! 
Why not little else than thought, little else than man, than 
earth and heaven and God? Little else than life? Nay, nay, there is 
an impiety in the phrase. I find a saying of Joubert that is 
nobler — " Old age takes from the man of intellect no quality 
save those that are useless to wisdom "; and Auerbach has a 
beautiful simile, "The silver-leaved birch retains in its old age a 
soft bark; there are some such men." Little else than life, for- 
sooth! Why, this has a glorious meaning, if we will understand, 
namely, that age is life stripped of weight, like an army that has 
flung away its baggage and subsists on the rich products of its 
line of jnarch. And now the end is close at hand, the sea-coast 
but a little way beyond a hill-brow and belt of green; the march 
is near its end. To-morrow it will be finished. What should 
age do? Why, march on the same to-day as yesterday. What 
should it do but human duties, waking, serving, thinking, mak- 
ing, loving, and sleeping, and all in peace, and nothing with any 
fever of expectancy, and everything with willingness of mind 
for the morrow, for the end of the march at the sea? 

In fine, then, the truth is the same for all, for one in the 



ABTDING GOD'S TIME. 73 

glow of youth or the strength of mid-age, if he knew he were to 
die to-morrow, and for the aged who knows that his day already 
is long drawn out and must expire; and the truth is this, that 
we should go straight on with the simple duties of every day 
under the Shadow of the Almighty, because these duties are divine 
and are appointed us, and we should know their divinity and do 
them. It is in this simple way that the poet answers the ques- 
tion, thus: — 

"I do not think that I should shrink or falter, 

But just go on 
Doing my work, nor change nor seek to alter 

Aught that has gone ; 
But rise and move and love and smile and pray 

For one more day. 

And, lying down at night for a last sleeping, 

Say in that ear 
Which heai'kens ever : Lord, within thy keeping 

How should I fear? 
And when to-morrow brings thee nearer still, 

Do thou thy will." 

But what if we knew we were to live a long time? The 
poet asks this question, thus: — 

"But if a wondrous hand from the blue yonder 

Held out a scroll, 
On which my life was writ, and I with wonder 

Beheld unroll 
To a long century's end its mystic clue, 

What should I do?" 

Well, and if we knew we were to live a hundred years, as 
the poet says, what then? How would our lives be altered by 
this knowledge? What should we do then? What answer can 
there be again but that we must go on "day by day" to take up 
what God lays at our threshold to be lifted and carried into our 
house, or lifted and carried somewhither else, to do the tasks 
that God brings to our hands, to go in the paths that God opens 
to our feet? For whatever we find at our threshold or whatever 
comes to our hands or whatever paths open, these fall not to us 
by chance nor come with wings of their own, but God brings 
them and sets them before us, and every one of them is his be- 
fore it is given to be ours, and every one carries divine command. 
If we are to live a day, the commandment of God and whatever 



74 ABIDING GOD'S TIME. 

task he brings to us, are not belittled; and if we live one hun- 
dred years, the commandment of God and whatever task he 
brings to us are not made greater. For naught can be added and 
naught taken away when God hath spoken. Therefore if, as the 
poet saith, the scroll be let down with our destiny for a century 
writ on it, this day's task is no more mine to refuse than it was 
before, and no greater nor more important, neither any less; 
but it is God's gift and his command, and all is said. Therefore 
'tis the same if we were to live a century of days as if only one 
day, that we should go on the same; that with deft attention 
the food should be cooked and the table with clean service spread ; 
that we should draw wholesome water for bright ewers; that 
meat and drink should be laid with comely order, the household 
called to the health-making viands, the guest summoned and 
with kind hospitality regaled ; that the meal should be cheered 
with bright smiles offered, and conversation sweeter even than 
bread that nourishes the body and oil that makes glad the face 
of man ; that forth we should go to the business of the day at 
shop or hall; that wide affairs should be ordered well and we at 
desks sitting direct a multitude of things till they move in ser- 
viceable order; that we should seek in full markets what to buy 
and again in other waiting marts what to sell; that little children 
should be arrayed with comely modesty and taught a useful 
knowledge; that the sorrows of childhood, keen for little hearts, 
should be soothed and their pains or hurts of body be cured by 
kind medicaments, and they be turned forth to school in the 
morning with love, and with a like love welcomed back ; that we 
should cleanse the floors till they be fit pathways of health; that 
we should sprinkle the beds of flowers, being to them a provi- 
dence of rain; that we should cull the blossoms wherewith to 
garnish our rooms ; that the lamps should be trimmed to be like 
little suns on our tables; that vast manufactories with their 
whirling wheels and prodigious engines should be directed, and 
marvelous patterns and webs be designed for the looms of mills; 
that we should despatch far and wide over the earth by mighty 
ships, and again receive and unload and store in sky-reaching 
warehouses; that again in the evening we should come back to 
our home and sit down therein and break bread and give thanks ; 
and then forget not but studiously bethink us of our mind's needs 



ABIDING GOD'S TIME. 75 

whereto the historian, the poet and the prophet minister. Like 
as if we knew we were to live but a day, so if we knew we were 
to live a hundred years, these things would carry the same import 
from God. And this is the answer of the poet: — 

'•What could I do, O, blessed Guide and Master, 

Other than this— 
Still to go on as now, not slower, faster, 

Nor fear to miss 
The road, althouah so very long it be, 

While led T»y thee?" 

We must abide God's time. For we cannot hasten anything 
before his time, however we try. This is one sense of abiding. 
But this is to abide ununited in spirit, laggard, unwilling, clashing, 
withstanding, mutinous. But we may abide. This is the religious 
sense of abiding. Here come in will and heart, by whose virtue 
we abide freely and joyfully, "not like the quarry-slave at night, 
scourged to his dungeon." This is a waiting with submissiveness, 
trust and tmity of spirit, that would not alter God's time. 

The Bible often has this thought. David said to Solomon, 
"Serve God with a Killing mind" Paul writes, "If there be first 
a irillin/j mind, it is accepted"; and in another place, "In preach- 
ing the gospel I have nothing to glory in, for I am under a ne- 
cessity to do so; yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. If I 
do so willingly, I have a reward. But if univilli/u/ly, still the steward- 
ship has been laid upon me." Aurelius says nobly, in a like spirit: 
"He who flies from his master is a runaway. But the law is 
master, and he who breaks the law is a runaway. And also 
whoever is grieved or angry or afraid, he is dissatisfied because 
something has been or is or shall be of the things which are 
appointed by Him who rules all things. And He is law, and 
assigns to eveiy man what is fit. That man, then, who fears or 
is grieved or is angry, is a runaway." 

It is for us to work; then after the working to say, "I have 
striven to do my part. Now, my God, do thine in thine own 
time." But we must work. For only work is believing in God 
and living with God. Idleness is beggary toward God. 

That we must abide God's time, whether we be dragged and 
whipped to it, or go to it with willing piety, doing his command- 
ments by the way and not stormy or rebellious with wishes and 



76 ABIDING GOD'S TIME. 

passions — that we must abide his time, I say, appears in this, 
that we cannot see ahead, or do any thing to alter or mould what 
is coming, otherwise than by humble, self-forgetful, dutiful 
work in this present moment. We know not whether to-morrow 
we die, or after many years. And this is well. What could we 
do with foresight? This the poet says in this stanza: — 

"I inay not know ; niy God' no band revealeth 

Thy counsels wise ; 
Along the path a deepening shadow stealeth, 

No voice replies 
To all my questioning thought, the time to tell ; 

And it is well." 

This circumscription of us, that we cannot see ahead, simply 
brings this moment into heavenly import. It is shown divine, 
and God indwelling. This instant is a sight of him. Yea, and 
a perfect knowledge and sight of him according to our being and 
our power now to see or know. And if ever we be greater in 
being and in power to see and know, still it will be sight and 
knowledge of this present instant in which God lives with infinity. 
Who can drag back the past to change it? Who can drag for- 
ward the future to hasten it? The past has left its power and 
impress here: the future forecasts its piety here. They empty 
into this now, from behind and before. All that has been and 
all that is to be for us hangs on this, that now we have what we 
have, and that this is divine. Therefore what piety is there but 
to take this, and to know it is divine, and to go on with it 
humbly and faithfully, and yet with exultation that we are 
children of such a covenant? What piety is there but to take 
this day so divinely that we could do no differently in it, whether 
knowing we were to die to-morrow or informed we were to live 
a hundred years? Yea, how can we dare to edge in our own 
will, and threaten, storm or complain to the heavens? How 
know we all the things that hang on one thing, that were shaken 
if aught were altered at our bidding or wrung from a vexed 
heaven by our impious prayers? 0, how glorious the heavens! 
how quiet the stars! how beautiful and holy their array and 
order, like the progression of a hymn of worship! How dare 
we froth on them with our mouths? How can we break boldly 
and twist their rays by unwillingness and pride which make our 



ABIDING GOD'S TIME. 77 

hearts bad and misshaping reflectors? How can we complain? 
How can we despise our duties and be fain to throw them off, 
where the heavens hang over? "All things are implicated with 
one another," says Aurelius, " and there is hardly anything 
unconnected with any other thing; and this bond is holy." 

Friends and brethren, this truth that we have been looking 
at, that has been put into my mouth for you, is simple religion. 
We have but to go on where a path shows. One step at a time, 
is religion. For the moment and place, that one step is the 
whole of religion. That step always is a plain one. Seldom in- 
d&ed\we know not ivhat to do the very next moment. 'Tis the moment 
after the next that perplexes us; but the next step is plainly 
before us. For if we know not what thing to do, this is God's 
command to wait. Waiting is then the next step. It is a great 
step, often trying the soul to its depths. It is very hard to wait 
with piety. But God's time is the right time; and the time that 
is and that comes is God's time, nor is this too soon nor that 
too late, while we do our part faithfully " day by day," under 
the Shadow of the Almighty. And thus the poet says, in the last 
stanza of the poem: — 

"Let me keep on, abiding and unfearing 

Thy will always, 
Through a long century's ripening fruition 

Or a short day's ; 
Thou cans't not come too soon ; and I can wait 

If thou come late." 



THE FULL BUSHEL. 



"Four pecks make a bushel." 

A strange text, but I hope au honest one. 'Tis sure that 
it states a fact — a great Virtue in a text. But possibly also it 
may be found a sort of sturdy Jacques, "full of matter" touching 
common life. It came before me thus: Two young gentlemen 
attended my preaching once on a time and listened to the sermon. 
I know not the exact time, nor what I said in that sermon; 
perhaps they also remember it not. There is nothing remark- 
able in these facts. After the sermon, the young gentlemen 
went forth like others of the congregation, and talked on the 
way, like the disciples going to Emmaus. I trust there is noth- 
ing remarkable in their talking awhile of the discourse they had 
heard. But the substance of then talk was noteworthy; for one 
said to the other: "I like to be told frequently that four pecks 
make a bushel." Now this was intended as a critical remark. 
It was supposed that the sermon had fallen short of the worth 
of the valuable fact that four pecks make a bushel. I mean not 
that I had dared deny that a bushel is four pecks, or had main- 
tained aught unsortiug therewith; but that I had not said any- 
thing of half so much moment to human beings as the fact or 
the statement that four pecks make a bushel. My sermon had 
been too remote, the young gentleman believed, from daily life 
in which the bushel is so valuable. 

When this speech was told me, I saw much wisdom in it. 
As a critical remark, indeed, it may be overrated easily. For, 
as you know very well, I look on thought as a duty. I think 
yoimg gentlemen and persons of all ages should like to be led to 
think sometimes, even if the elements of arithmetic be not the 
subject. I beheve in the inspiring and helping power of a noble 



80 THE FULL BUSHEL. 

and high- thought, when it descends out of the heavens like a dove, 
or like a great storm, or like lightning. I believe in knowledge. 
It is quite plain to me that he will love the earth and the crea- 
tures on it best who knows most about the unfathomable life 
thereof, and the motions that manifest it. I think it well for 
the pulpit to try to help men to be reasonable. The first steam- 
boat that ever was made was set upon and broken to pieces by a 
number of ignorant watermen, and no other was built for a hun- 
dred years. Suppose, now, that the schoolmaster had instructed 
those dear wooden-heads regarding the nature and value of that 
steamboat, and that the priest had roused in them a reverence 
for human thought and a wise forbearance in matters whereof 
they were ignorant. That little vessel would have found the 
open sea. It has been remarked that no one can say or imagine 
what differences in empires, in arts and manufactures, and in all 
the motions of human society we should be witnessing now. 
Besides, whatever be the value of knowledge and thought, it is 
right that all kinds of persons should have a share of considera- 
tion. As many persons do find joy in thinking, those whose 
heads limp too much for that exercise must stand by the wayside 
occasionally, and see the robust pleasure with which sound parts 
will climb a hill. 

Therefore, be it said, the young gentleman's saying is not 
of profound critical value. Notwithstanding, it is wise, and I 
write this sermon on purpose to follow that counsel and to say 
over to you many times that four pecks make a bushel. For in 
truth it is impossible to say duly what an important fact this is, 
or with what profit we may remind ourselves of it continually. 

The first thing that siezes the mind in this matter is the 
precept not to expect more than four pecks to the bushel; for, as 
four pecks make a bushel, so by no means can we get more out 
of a bushel than the four pecks. This, alas! seems a very hard 
lesson for human creatures to learn. The world appears full of 
people striving to get more out of their bushel than the exact 
four pecks which they have put in. This is really a matter of 
profound ethical philosophy, so deep indeed that few understand 
it. However often the truth may be set forth, people do go on 
just the same in their strange efforts to find more than the four 
pecks, just as even at this moment many sorry heads are dream- 



THE FULL BUSHEL. 81 

ing after a perpetual motion, though it has been proved a folly 
ten thousand times. 

One of the best expressions of this philosophy was uttered 
1800 years ago, in the Sermon on the Mount. There it is stated 
that all things bear their own natural fruit, that everything has 
its own peculiar return and reward, of which it cannot fail; bu£ 
that we must not expect also the returns belonging to other 
things. For thus I paraphrase the terse language of that great 
sermon. "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to 
be seen of them; otherwise ye must look to men only for your 
reward. For the act then is done for renown among them ; and this 
ye will have. But ye will have no reward of your Father which is 
in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, sound not 
a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do, in the syna- 
gogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. 
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. There is an exact 
return that belongs to just that act, and they have that precise 
return. But there is a better alms, which is done when thou 
lettest not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, so 
that the alms are in secret; and these alms have another re- 
ward, which comes from the Father, who seeth in secret and will 
give the return. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as 
the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the syna- 
gogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of 
men. Verily I say unto you, think not that they gain nothing 
by this act; nay, they gain its own exact reward, just its own 
impartial measure of return in the praise of men and in a sound- 
ing reputation. But there is a better way. When thou 
prayest, go into thy closet and shut the door and pray to thy 
Father who is in secret. This secret prayer has its own reward 
which comes to thee directly. And the prayer in the street cor- 
ners cannot bring the return that belongs to private devotion ; 
neither can the secret prayer expect the returns which belong to 
the public exhibition in the synagogues. Neither the open nor 
the secret alms, and neither the private nor the ostentatious de- 
votion shall fail of its own exact return, and neither of them can 
give what belongs to the other. 

Turn your eyes on the world to see some of the examples 
with which it is crowded — examples of the unhappy struggle to 



82 THE FULL BUSHEL. 

get by one way the reward which belongs to another way, to 
scrape out of a bushel more than its four pecks; an unhappy 
struggle indeed, for nature has set her| face against such a busi- 
ness, and it comes to naught. 

Everywhere you shall see men devoted with all the body 
and the soul to money-getting. They work hard, yea, often 
they toil very severely, for the laying up of great stores of pos- 
sessions. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. The 
possessions they do obtain, and the power and the consideration 
in the world which go with these things they receive. But if 
such persons expect also to win admiration for their worth of 
mind, if they, having thought only of storing up matter, look to 
be possessed also of thoughts and knowledge, if they hope for 
noble company and rich companionship which come to sit down 
by the side of wisdom in the society of high minds and fecund 
thoughts, if they wish to surround themselves also with all these 
very choice things of life, then they are looking for more than 
the four pecks which are in the bushel. 

But 'tis just so, too, if we turn and look the other way. 
For many persons there are who are so happy as to have room 
for the glorious exercise of mind. Either they have elected this 
blessed privilege, or they have been placed in its way by happy 
circumstance, or resolutely and nobly they wrest some time and 
strength for it from the toils of the day and the pleasures of the 
evening. And they have their reward. But they go grumbling 
that they have not also the other reward. They are not satisfied 
with the peace and joy, the serene intelligence, the clear depths 
of understanding in which nature is mirrored within them as 
the stars in a still pool — with these, I say, they are not satisfied, 
indeed they break them and destroy the calm peace which be- 
longs to them because they go hungering and clamoring for the 
rewards which belong only to the stores of matter and not to the 
riches of mind. They wish to be wise and full of knowledge, 
and yet complain that with this they get not wealth also. They 
bemoan the poor returns which they get. Alas for them! I 
shut my eyes on them ! they are scraping the bushel for more 
than its four pecks. 

Others there are who seek only how to have pleasure, and 
know not what the great and blissful pleasures are. They waste 



THE FULL BUSHEL. 83 

time in a giddy round of social business from which they glean 
few moments to think or even to feel, and indeed not enough to 
rest as they ought. They have their reward. The pleasures 
please, the dance or game or jest weaves its patterns like gay 
carpets on which light feet come and go or pretty wit plays its 
dazzles; and "such a hare is madness, the youth, to leap o'er 
the meshes of old age, the cripple," even though old age spread 
the mesh kindly, saying, "I hobble now because I did in my 
youth as you are doing!" But youth has its reward and is gay, 
bright and lissom. But sometimes a deeper chord is struck. 
The youth will sit entranced before some glorious eloquence of 
word or music or picture. For the first time, life breaks on his 
eye, and it is seen to be a great deep sea. He will look up to 
some noble form borne on the breast of that life and tossed into 
the clouds by the heaving of that breast. He will be hlled with 
a sincere reverence and sorrow before the eloquence, the grandeur 
of thought, the wideness of mind, and the great joys and inde- 
pendence that inhabit those heavens. He will envy that strength 
and beauty. But therein he is discontented with his bushel for 
holding only the four pecks which he has filled it withal. 

Or again, there may be an unwise seclusion. Life is many- 
sided and rich in divers values. All are good, and particularly 
it is wise to come close to persons if we wish to keep life abound- 
ing in us and playing with a sweet rhythm on its shores. We 
see one person who is shut up in books ; he is full of austere 
study; he applies himself in a cloister copying books into his 
head, as the old monks did on parchment. He has his reward. 
He will store up curious learning, science will unlock her 
treasures for him and history her riches. Yea, but if he expect 
also the powers of life and light, if he wish to know, or if he 
envy those who know, how a heart-beat feels when it strikes 
on another heart; if he look for the light of children's eyes to 
stream in at his window, then he expects more than four pecks, 
and with all his getting he has not got the understanding of the 
bushel. 

You will meet many persons who are well satisfied with 
themselves. They are full of knowledge in then- own eyes. 
They rejoice in their wisdom and wish no one to lead them. 
They understand not that humility which the Arabians enshrine 



84 THE FULL BUSHEL. 

in a tale of a Calef who, being corrected by a wise man for an 
ungrammatical expression in Arabic, promptly ordered that the 
mouth of the scholar should be filled with jewels because of the 
benefit which it had conferred; neither do they remember that 
the least tincture of vanity shows that the mind cannot hold 
place with the first and grandest. But this satisfaction in self 
has its due reward. It is free from the pains of aspiration, from 
the pangs of a regretful ignorance, from the waste and burning of 
the fever to think and to do noble things worthy of the universe 
which has produced us and to drink of the fountains of everlast- 
ing beauty. All these pangs pass by and leave the self-contented 
soul calm and quiet. But if such a one expect also to learn, to 
grow, to improve, to do justice to the fire which burns in gener- 
ous bosoms, to be gentle and considerate and careful not to en- 
croach on the rightful freedom of another's will or mind, then 
he looks for too much in the bushel. He can take out only the 
four pecks he has put in. 

You will see a selfish man. He has his reward. He can 
get and keep many things; he escapes much painful sympathy; 
he avoids much self-sacrifice. But very likely he wants to be 
loved, also; perhaps he groans at having no friends. This is 
merely foolish. He is trying to get more than four pecks in his 
bushel. 

You will meet persons who take the great social step in life 
with no heart. The great social step is marriage. Whoever 
moves into that charmed circle without a companion the mere 
touch of whose hand is bliss, is torn to pieces by imps. Yet 
without regard to character or mind or love, to the stabilities of 
moral worth and a good heart shining in a clear eye, you will 
see an inheritance marry an inheritance, as men club funds for 
business ; or, worse, if possible, a needy young man hunt out a 
fortune, like a luxurious bed, to lounge on it; or a girl take a 
husband who is unsound from the heart out and carries 
no mind behind his eyes, because he is rich. When a noble- 
man invited Coleridge to dine, he said, "I will send you my bill 
of fare." "Send me your bill of company," answered the poet. 
When two ask each other to that long entertainment at which 
they must sit and take life together, let them answer, "Tell me 
not what shall be on the table, but what you have in you for 



THE FUEL BUSHEL. 85 

company." There is a story of a young girl whose father urged, 
on her a wealthy suitor whom she did not respect. He used the 
common arguments, not thinking for the moment of the wife 
whose daughter his daughter was, who lay asleep in the church- 
yard of the village home. But before the mother fell meekly 
asleep, she had left the diamond-drop of her womanhood in her 
girl. 

"Father," she said, "have you a sovereign? give it me. 
How bright it is! and how heavy! it weighs very much in life, 
does, it not, Father? But why does it not speak to me?" 

"'Speak, my Child?" 

"Yes, indeed, speak! Strange that something so mighty 
cannot speak! But perhaps it can think if it cannot speak, and 
walk and love and pray! it is so bright and shining! Can it do 
these things, Father?" 

"What questions, Child!" 

"But, Father, when I marry, I want somewhat that can 
talk with me, walk with me, think with me, love with me and 
pray with me. Until then, let me be only my Father's child." 

Now, the law is plain. Four pecks make the bushel. If 
any one marry the sovereign, and expect also the joys of those 
things which the sovereign cannot do, he is raking for more in 
the four pecks of tinsel in the bushel. 

But let these pictures pass by, as a panorama moves. The 
showman is tired of them, and in fact you may sit on a stone 
by any wayside and see hundreds of them. It is important to 
remember the one agreement in them all, — the unreasonableness 
of looking for more than four pecks in a bushel. Choose your 
ways of life and choose as men who mean to take the choice with 
all that it conveys. Bemember simply that if you elect some 
things, you cannot have the reward of others, and that it is 
foolish and feeble to grumble at not having things the condi- 
tions of which you will not elect. You cannot be greedy and 
grab successfully, and at the same time be noble and distribute 
beautifully. You cannot be selfish and mean, and at the same 
time lovely and beloved. Y^ou must choose whether you will be 
a mere mill, giddy with the whirl of the grinding when there is 
grist, and giddy with the clatter when there is none; or whether 
you will be a well-informed and large-minded man. Be sure 



86 THE FULL BUSHEL. 

simply that with whatever four pecks you fill your bushel, you 
will get nothing else out therefrom. 

The second thing that strikes the mind touching this im- 
portant science of the bushel, is this, — that as we cannot get more 
from a bushel than we have agreed to put in it, so we ought 
carefully to give four fall pecks for a bushel. It will occur to you 
that this is the precept of common honesty. So it is. I hope 
indeed the honesty is very common. But what occurs to me 
now is that this is a very beautiful thing, this simple common 
honesty. The thoughts derived from the young gentleman's say- 
ing regarding the bushel lead us directly to a fine art. Consider. A 
customer wishes to buy something, be it food or cloth or shoes, 
or any other thing. The transaction is made. Exactly the 
equivalent is laid down in some other commodity or in the money 
which is the medium of exchange, and for that he receives ex- 
actly a full bushel of four pecks. It is done! What cleanness! 
what simplicity! what neatness! no loose ends or ravels appear, 
as in untidy work ! all is complete, rounded, finished, symmet- 
rical, as beautiful as a Greek face! Study that simple honesty. 
See how the social fabric glows by it. Look at it as an art, this 
matter of common honesty, a fine art. Think what an ignorant 
bungler he is who plots to give less than four pecks to a bushel. 
You perceive there is no art, no beauty, because nothing is 
finished. The act is involved in one long tangle and struggle 
with all other things. The mean deed is continually in the way, 
always tripping up some one, always half-showing its face, and 
then hiding again to peek out soon from some other corner. It 
becomes a source of disorder and doubt in everything. Beauty 
becomes impossible in its path, till that bushel of three and a 
half pecks is brought home and filled to the brim. If the chemist 
define dirt as matter out of place, what more natural than that 
ugliness consists in forms and things out of place. To give 
every one what belongs to him, that is, to put everything in its 
place, this is to make neatness, order, cleanliness, beauty. Dis- 
honesty is the hideous dust and scattered implements of a room 
where carousal has been. Simple honesty is brimming with 
beauty. It becomes the face of a man. It makes him look clearly 
and straight into other faces. It makes the world good, glad, 
and graceful. 



THE FULL BUSHEL. 87 

Finally, I see in this saying touching the bushel a glimpse 
of the value of the common precepts in morality and the common 
experience in religion. The common staples of the moral life — 
how satisfying they are, how good for the taste, digestion, and 
health! An excellent musician said to me, touching common- 
place, "Bemeinber that if a phrase he common, it is common 
because it is good." So it is with authors. The greatest poets, 
those in whom human life is reflected most truly and grandly, 
are household names. Every one knows them and speaks of 
them. Only the foolish rake eccentric names out of obscurity 
as the touchstone of learning, or read and rend, like vultures, 
everything the press turns out. It is the common homely virtues, 
the daily experience, and the simple precepts voicing these, 
which are the fountains of life. I hold it bad to be a babbler of 
religion. Frantic experience-meetings or garrulous prayer-meet- 
ings and the noise of revivals are as profane, to my mind, as 
Babylonian rites. Between two or three let but a few words be 
said reverently touching the eternal mystery and the Great 
Name, and let silence follow. Sometimes the swell of emotion 
will rise like a great wave till it scatters its mist into the heavens 
and the stars drink it. 'Tis then like the ocean whose roar is 
not a chatter, but rests on deeps which bear up the sound, 
emitting none. But the sweet experience of daily gratitude and 
trust, the unspoken prayer which instantly is answered by a tide 
of will or endurance, the sudden thought of that Fatherhood of 
mystery which holds us like water-drops in a firmament, the 
peace amid difficulties, griefs, pains, disappointments, the simple 
patience and childlike kindness which disciplined natures bear 
about them, the simplicity, earnestness, fervor, love, forgiveness, 
repentance of every day — this is religion, common religion, sa- 
cred, serene and holy. 

'Tis so with common morality and its precepts. They are 
the great things of life, and common because so needful. And 
the young gentleman wished them repeated ; he wished to hear 
often that four pecks make a bushel. He was wise. It is well 
to tell the truth and it is wrong to tell untruths; even a little 
untruth is both wrong and mean. Be not siezed with too much 
wonder at this saying: I assure you it is quite true, and a very 
simple truth. It is well to be loving and gentle to your wife or 



88 THE FULL BUSHEL. 

your husband, to be very tender to little children, to be kind to 
the unfortunate, to be chaste in act and speech, to be honest, to 
be faithful in friendship and true to your word in all things ; it 
is well to be forbearing and forgiving, to return good for evil, to 
guard against spitefulness, to be generous in thought and deed, 
to try to help society on to a better state; it is well to be sober 
and temperate, to be cheerful and diffuse light about us. I as- 
sure you all these things are very true, and it is wise to say them 
over and over. But it will be wiser, and indeed a dawn of light 
and beauty like the creation sung by primeval poets, if we make 
these things as common in life as in words. These things, true, 
honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report — "if there be any virtue 
and if .there be any praise, think of these things." 

"Had it been given me to write down my life 

Or only ita beginning, but two lines, 

Upon a solid tablet of pure gold, 

How bad I paused ! bow pondered o'er tbe task ! 

Yet now, indeed, as cbildren on tbeir slates 

Write wbat is easily effaced, eacb man 

Writes witb ligbt band but ineffaceably 

His life upon tbe beavy mass of days 

Tbat towers bebind us, dark, immovable, 

An up-piled cloudy wall of adamant, 

Infrangible, more solid tban mere gold ; 

He writes it, as a fate, on buman bearts ; 

He writes it on bis own witb iron pen 1 

Tben, writer ! tbink, create, engrave witb care." 



THE KICHES OF LIFE. 



" The earth is full of thy riches."— Psalm civ. 24. 

This great and glorious psalm is one of the two or three 
places in the Old Testament in which riches has a wider and 
higher meaning than merely wealth or money. Indeed, the 
riches of life, or perhaps better I may say the riches of living, is 
rather a thought of the New Testament than of the Old. I have 
met, indeed, hut one other passage in the Old Testament in 
which the word riches is applied to aught more than the having 
of material wealth, which is that good saying in Proverbs, 
" There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing; and there 
is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches." 

But the New Testament is full of this glowing thought of 
the riches of living, of the riches of mind, of the heart, of the 
soul. In Luke we have the parable of the rich man who thought 
within himself to pull down his barns and build greater, and 
heap all his fruits and his goods in them, and say to his soul, 
" Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine 
ease, eat, drink and be merry ; " and, says the evangelist, 
when God shall require his soul of him this night, whose shall 
these things be that he has provided? Such is he that layeth up 
treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Like to this 
is the saying in the first epistle of Timothy, " rich in good 
works," which the Apostle says must be our aim, that we be not 
lofty-minded, nor trust in the uncertain riches, but in the certain 
ones, Athich is riches in good works. So the Epistle of James 
says, " Hath not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in 
faith?" And again in the book of Revelation it is said that he 



90 THE RICHES OF LIFE. 

that is the First and the Last saith to the churches, "I know 
thy works and tribulations and poverty, but thou art rich." In 
Paul and the apostles this glowing thought of riches of life is 
far forth to the front. Paul says in his letter to the Komans, 
u The Lord is rich unto all that call on him;" and again in 
another place, " The riches of his goodness, forbearance and 
long suffering," cries the apostle; and in yet another place in the 
same letter, " The riches of his glory ; " and the same expres- 
sion occurs in the letter to the Ephesians. In another place in 
the Komans he says, " the depth of the riches both of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God." And in the epistle to the 
Ephesians we have these sayings: " Eich in mercy for his great 
love wherewith he loves us," " The exceeding riches of his 
grace," "The unsearchable riches of Christ;" and in Collos- 
sians the apostle speaks of " The riches of a full assurance of 
the understanding, the full knowledge of the mystery of God." 
In the Hebrews it is said that the reproach of Christ, which 
is to say the reproach that men endured for his cause, " is 
counted greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;" and in Cor- 
inthians Paul writes, " For your sakes Christ became poor that 
ye, through his poverty, might be rich." 

It is quite wonderful that thus the word riches comes into 
the New Testament alive with such a new and glowing sense, 
whereas in the old Hebrew scriptures it had but the common 
meaning of ordinary wealth. Let us take up this subject, let 
us look a little at the riches of living. This has been pressing 
on my mind and heart all this summer. How the subject crowds 
indeed! If I must try to speak of it in a little space, as I must, 
it seems like treating of history in a page, or reading some grand 
volume in an hour, or taking ten thousand miles of landscape 
on a canvas. And yet I bethink me that this last can be done 
if we paint the heavens ; yea, and ten million miles. So we may 
speak in brief of the riches of living, if we take a high and 
heavenly scope, if we apply to the riches that are like the sky, 
and so bring a vast view into a small space. 

The riches of life are Nature, Creation ; again, Mankind; again, 
Experinece of Ourselves. Or thus I may phrase these riches: The 
joy of observation and knowledge, the joy of love and liberty, the 
joy of labor and obedience. Let us speak of these in order. 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 91 

First, look at Nature. This map unrolled before our 
wondering eyes — what a riches of life! what a splendor to walk 
in ! To walk in it day by day, as we may, is riches of pleasure 
It is a pleasant thing to go about, pleasant to look, 
listen, hear, to see or to smell. Pleasant, say I? I have be- 
thought me at some moments in this last jubilant flowering 
season that to walk about was glorious, like a king's progress. 
I can see from my window a lime kiln; soon I go by it; a tall 
column of black smoke rises from it. Even in the daylight I 
see a brush of red flame laboring with the smoke. After the 
smoke is gone, a delicate white mist ascends, draping the air. I 
pass some wood sawyers at work; I admire the large, keen teeth 
of the double-handed saw ; and the smell of the cut wood is 
delicious, wholesome. I hear the hum and smell the clean 
flavor of a grist mill. I stand a long time admiring the whirl- 
ing stone, snuffing the wholesome dust, handling the brown 
wheat. I look into the window of a swarthy place, where plow- 
shares are ground. A workman holds one on a movable frame ; 
when he brings it against the huge stone, streams of sparks fly 
off like a comet's tail. I meet a boy full of brown health. 
What a sight he is, running down the hill to the west! His cap 
hangs on the back of his head, and the broad leathern visor is 
turned to the north star. I observe a squirrel sitting erect ; I see 
that he has a black nut in his hand-paws, and another near by a 
piece of apple. Crosses my path a handsome white hen, with black 
marks on her back and wings ; she has found a ripe, red tomato. I 
find a tree-toad in a well cover. I know how his voice sounds 
when he is in the tree. I see that he looks like a piece of 
breathing bark. I hear the locust spring his rattle at noon when 
the air is full of the delicious heat, and the frog and tree insects 
at night, more shrill than any human instrument can pitch a 
tone. At sunset I wait long, looking at the river, at the solemn 
palisades of rock rising until the western clouds cover them 
with golden drapery. In some places the river is smooth, in 
others covered with ripples. The trees far below those battlements 
make feathery shadows in the water long after they have 
melted into one black mass away up the slope. A star one 
hour high shoots a ray of light straight down into the water ; it 
ends in sprays and sprinkles of light like a fountain in the air. 



92 THE RICHES OF LIFE. 

I hear many cheerful night-sounds in the coolness; I hear children 
playing and calling one another ; I note dogs growling and baying 
in the distance ; I hear a hand of music; it ends a piece with a 
long, sweet tone and a staccato chord with a drum-beat ; I hear 
the pretty voices of girls, talking and laughing; and a 
rapid step on the pavement sounds happy. Such are the 
things we walk among, even the little things, and each one of 
them full of beauty, of the riches of life. In the hundred and 
fourth Psalm, where I have chosen my text, the poet speaks of 
many of these things with a Hebrew's sense of majesty. He 
says : " God covereth himself with light as with a garment, and 
stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain ;" he ''lays the beams 
of his chambers in the waters ; " the clouds are his chariots, 
and he walks on the wings of the wind. There are springs in 
the valleys which run among the hills ; they give drink to the 
beasts of the field, and the wild asses are there qupnching their 
thirst. The fowls of the heavens come and make their habita- 
tions and sing there among the branches. He causes grass to 
grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man. Near by 
are trees full of sap — the trees which he has planted — and to 
them come the storks, and other birds, and they make the fair 
trees their houses. The hills are covered with wild goats; 
and the moon riseth for his season, and the sun knoweth his 
going down. Darkness comes on, and the beasts of the forest 
creep forth, and the young lions roar after their prey. Behold, 
also the sea, the great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping 
innumerable, small and great beasts, the leviathan which has 
been formed to play therein, yea, and the ships that man hath 
made. And man goeth forth to his work and to labor until the 
evening. 

If we look at man now as the Psalmist has looked, and see 
him among these other wonders, what riches to see and to note! 
Among all beauties, what beauty like the human body! The 
splendor of it, its superb and stalwart agility, its supple grace, its 
swiftness, its exercise, its endurance, — what equal to these? 
Then, too, the science of its structure, its anatomy, its science of 
health, of disease! The human voice is the most tender and ex- 
quisite of all vocal sounds, and sweeter than all instruments of 
music, being vibrant with soul. Also how dear it becomes 



THE KICHES^OF LIFE. 93 

when 'tis the voice of a Mend, being like a sweet song in itself, 
so full is it of feeling, so tender with the vibrations of love, or so 
reverberent with precious memories. The human face — what 
riches! what forcible light, like a sun! how exquisite its symmetry, 
how noble its power, how sensitive the mouth, how raptuous 
the eye, and how beautiful altogether! how sublime and tender 
the emotions that move on it! And the human hand, why this 
is the wonder of all creation, as well as one of the greatest 
beauties of the whole earth. Its mechanical perfection is the 
delight and astonishment of the philosopher, its form is the 
charm of the artist, its signs of character are marvelous; it is 
a tool, a weapon, a grace, a glossary of sign-language ; its 
clasp is love, friendship, faithfulness, honor, protection. What 
riches of delight, of joy, are in the human body! And those of 
the soul in the body, the wonders of men's doing, the wonders 
that he hath made by employing his body on all the material 
frame about him! The acts, the inventions, the imaginations, 
— these glow like lamps in every village and hamlet, they fill 
our dwellings with marvelous utensils and conveniences, they 
clothe us with lovely fabrics, they make industry and cheerfulness 
to abound. The science, too, of all this wondrous army of 
things! I include the descriptive sciences, botany, zoology, 
geology, and the sciences of minerals, birds, shells, and the ex- 
perimental sciences, properly called physics, mechanics, accous- 
tics, optics, heat, electricity; also astronomy, which holds a radi- 
ant and unapproachable place of its own. What rapturous pur- 
suits are these! what riches of living! what vistas of order, 
force, time, they open! what entrancing beauty in the grand and 
in the minute, when man in his soul takes his station and 
makes his body work, as we may say, on the infinite body. We 
sit reverently at the feet of those magicians whose wand is 
observation, whose spell is thought. Magicians? Nay, priests 
and prophets, who open to us these splendors, richer than 
all the mines of the East, and these marvels greater than Ara- 
bian imagination ever dreamed. Poetry, painting, music, sculp- 
ture, architecture, the drama, all are riches; all have such 
histories and such fullness that any one may be the subject of 
huge volumes, the long and deep study of a hfe-time. 

These are the vessels by which beauty brings her loads of 



94 THE RICHES OF LIFE\ 

graces or riches from that unknown country where they grow, 
to spread them in our cities, homes and lands. "What a wealth! 
what riches of thought, — wonderful, inexhaustible! 

The feats of the masters of language, of the poets who have 
known how to use syllables, of the learned men who have had 
wit to acquire the different tongues of the earth and with them 
do wonders of research into the condition and movements 
of the race long before the age of history, the aid of speech in 
the study of religions, the deciphering and rescuing of whole 
national histories from oblivion, — these are among the triumphs 
of human riches. Speech is such a thrilling, beautiful, master- 
ful, wondrous function, that display of its history or nature or 
capacities, is great glory. 

All this I see, I feel, I note about me. If you keep 
your minds and eyes and ears open for these things, you shall 
not take any walk, in what day or hour soever, but they shall 
come one on another, and then troops of them together, crowd- 
ing on your soul. I look at faces. Each one hath a look, an 
art, a faculty, a place, a duty, a joy, a struggle, a wonder; — 
"what a piece of work!" The effect of going about much, if we 
will use our eyes, as we should if we were walking among 
riches to know them, is to behold such a panorama of great 
creatures, all about us, as must fill us full with the thought of 
the riches of life. 

Let us not get used to these virtues, to be dull and dry 
among them. I knew a wise man who took by the hand a little 
maiden who was about to enter the solemnity of marriage, and 
taking her away for a little talk, he said to her: "My child, I 
give thee one counsel, — never get used to love! Be never used 
to it! If thou try hard, thou canst keep it a perpetual wonder." 
What if we saw a man now indeed for the first time? How 
should we be quelled to our knees! And a star for the first 
time, creation widened at night? How should we burn with un- 
utterable praise! And yet every morning we ought to awake as 
to a first time of men and things, and feel "how beautiful it is to 
be alive." All is great and admirable, and very important, like 
a plainly-clad herald charged with matters of great moment. I 
can but exclaim with the poet: — 



THE KlCHES OE LIEE. 95 

'•I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. 
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the 

Wren. 
And the tree-toad is a chef d'oevre for the highest. 
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven. 
And the narrowest hinge in my hand points to scorn all machinery. 
And the cow crunching with depressed head, surpasses any statue. 
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." 



But turrPnow from nature to mankind. Man himself, our 
neighbors, our friends, and all the people that fill the continents, 
these are riches of life ! How we are drawn and woven into the 
little circles of those that come near and very close to the heart! 
I call this second department of the riches of life, the joy of love 
and liberty. Why I speak here of liberty with love, I shall ex- 
plain by and by. But now I will speak simply of the riches of 
the affections. Think of the array of them, and what they in- 
clude, the things that centre in them and cluster with them. 
There is birth. What interest rests on the mystery of the assem- 
bling of that congress of qualities, which each one calls "I," 
and on its advent to this new earth! How strange the thought 
of that unfathomable depth from which we come, which seems 
to be all light beneath, but over it floats a drapery, a thin drap- 
ery of impenetrable darkness. We see the light through it. How 
impossible to admit the thought of a beginning. Yet there comes 
that little life, rising like a lily to the surface ; and we know not 
how it is planted or rooted, or whence it rises to dance on the 
wave which, God grant, be a sunny wave unto it by our means. 
And round that little life the affections gather as it grows to 
childhood. How pathetic the helplessness of the little child as 
it grows! how tender its disposition! how ready to forgive! 
What answerableness lies on us to strive by patience, by prayer 
and watchfulness, to guard and lead well the little child! Oh, 
what riches given, of which we are the stewards ! 

So the child comes to youth. Then open the charms of 
life, that call either with a siren's voice or with an angel's, ac- 
cording to the ear of the young soul, whether tuned to heavenly 
or to earthly strains. Think of the choices then made — how 



96 THE KICHES OP LIFE. 

beautiful they may be! how sad! how radiant with life, how 
ghastly with death! This is the time when education is tested, 
when the influences of childhood, the father's precept, the 
mother's prayer, the example of both, the inheritance (we know 
not how far back), begin to grow into lilies or nightshade. Then 
draws on middle age. The affections have kept pace with the 
unfolding life; the riches of love come forth to meet the 
riches of experience. Now brims the cup of energy and activity; 
the body is fully ripe, the strength adequate to labor, to enjoy, 
to sorrow too. This is the time of mature and grave issues. 
Life sometimes is storms of passions that rage over the soul ; 
but if the spirit can answer to the heavenly voice, those 
waves .will be tipped with white, and toss a pure spray into 
the sky, and the farther upward to the stars will it go the mightier 
has been the surge. So, with the power and glory of mid-life, 
we come at last to the rounding down of old age from the hilltop 
— a moving theme. The affections gather around it with great 
riches. It is a resplendent sight if it be noble, and in all ages 
old age has loaned its silver to the tongues of sages and bards. 
A beautiful charm rests on the evening of a life well spent. A 
holy light, as of something both ending and beginning, hovers 
around it, a most wonderful beam, like the light in the west, 
which is evening-red to us, morning-red to those who live 
beyond. Age also grows very tender in love. The aged live in 
a benign, wide-reaching and beautiful love, founded sometimes 
in their own temptations, struggles, victories. Woe be to the 
old man who knows not the young, having forgotten his own 
youth ! 

And so come we to death. Nay, I like not the word; we 
come to dying. Dying is not death; nay, but an act of life. It 
is sure to come; it hastens on with every flying minute. Yet see 
how far it is from casting any shadow of fear or gloom on us. 
The affections, when it comes, stoop over it, as they stoop over 
naught else but a birth. But we enjoy heartily, we love dearly, 
nay, we dance, we sing, in gladness of heart; and all of it, every 
laugh, and look, shakes off trembling leaves into earth's 
warm lap, — a holy and lovely mystery; not dreadful, nor repulsive 
nor shocking, but mysterious. 

All the way along this wondrous rich path, friendship 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 97 

beams. Friend-love makes a great part of all full lives. It 
fills the clays with love, with helpfulness; it keeps the earth full 
of company for us in many different corners where our friends 
live; it blooms as well in absence as in presence of our friends, 
yea, sometimes meseems it blooms better ; for when we get far 
away from one, it is very hard to think of his blemishes. Friend- 
ship is a perfect confidence, a mutual trust in trouble and sym- 
pathy in joy; also a source of warning, of guidance, of knowledge 
of ourselves. And sometimes this friendship — for that is the 
right way of it — blooms to what we call peculiarly love, that ex- 
quisite, delicate sentiment which draws two persons together 
into the most mysterious and holy of all unions. It is a mighty 
friendship, when perfected, with somewhat added. I may chal- 
lenge any one to tell me what that something is. It is elemental. 
Loving should rest on character, on moral worth and intellectual 
companionship ; and over all these comes that somewhat from 
heaven which is like light in the day at high noon, irradiating 
everything, but blinding us if we look at it too directly. Such 
love is stable and glorious. 

With this comes on the wondrous union of marriage. So 
enters marriage into all life that it is the theme of all stories 
and poems, the one union of lives of which all else seems pre- 
diction. No words can say too much of the riches or of the 
sanctity of that union, its supreme joy, or its great misery, ac- 
cording to our power to rejoice or to sorrow. In this wondrous 
riches, to keep them, the rule should be to throw away naught 
and let naught lie unused, but gather every possibility of com- 
panionship, cherish every little point where association, fellow- 
ship, appreciation, respect, admiration may quicken. Seek for 
them. This will enlarge the extension of the union till it shall 
cover the whole domain of life with a companionship which is 
strong inspiration and joy, encouraging each to the best things 
to be done and rewarding each with the dearest praise 
to be had. Nay, what other praise may be sought? None, 
none. The admiration and praise of the bosom friend are the 
only lauds that ever one ought to seek. With this, the work 
should be spread broadcast, without thought of the return of it. 

Such are the affections. So manifold, so creative, so truly 
of God, such a riches of the heart in life! 



98 THE RICHES OF LIFE. 

divine Love, great riches of life, that fillest heaven and 
earth like light, "offspring of heaven, first-born" — nay, not 
first-born, nor second, nor at all, not, indeed, having being in 
time but time in thee — un created, infinite, eternal Love, how 
dost thou lift human hearts into the heaven where thou art! 
Nay, I would say rather, how dost thou make us to see that this 
heaven surrounds the earth which floats midway of it! and never 
was it otherwise, and love bathes it in providence, and yet shall 
in bliss! Like water which is all one everywhere, so that 
whether it be a mountain spring, or torrents of rapids and water- 
falls, or a calm running river whose motion is too deep to be 
seen, still it is one with the ocean and riseth therefrom, and 
goes back thereto to rise again, and in its circle refreshes all 
things, plant and man, and beast and creeping thing, so 
art thou, Love, which art one everywhere ; and whether in 
child's heart, or man's, or woman's, and whether in one or in a 
nation when a million hearts beat like one, or whether consort- 
ing with knowledge, or with the untaught — yea, whether even 
with gentle and delicate souls, or with the rough, the rude — 
yea even with the savage in the forest, and besides these, even 
in the hearts of good dumb beasts that are faithful and feel thy 
pangs and joys, Love, in all these thou art one with the Infi- 
nite Life, the eternal, the all-holy, the Almighty, and risest 
therefrom and goest back thereto, and again risest, coming by 
death and life, by sleeping and waking, by morning and evening, 
and in thy circles filling the springs of joy, refreshing man and 
beast and creeping thing, yea, and the very plants which love 
will not let die of thirst; and dost bless the dreams of youth, 
the joy of mid- age, the peace of the old, the birth by which we 
come, and again the birth by which we go — the cradle, the 
school, the store, the bed, the grave! Love, what dost thou 
not hold! 0, Love, what dost thou lack! Naught, naught, 
naught! Thou hast all heaven, since thou art of Him whose 
abode is all the heavens which he hath inhabited eternally. 
Love, thou canst make this earth a blooming garden, full of 
such flowers as never yet were seen; for these blossoms shall be 
joy, and peace, and grace, and praise, and thanks. Love, thou 
dost take the nearest persons, those that belong to the heart that 
loveth them, they that make the home and live close together, 



THE EICHES OF LIFE. 99 

thou takest them, Love, and being near, thou makest them 
nearer, and being alike, thou makest them more alike and 
drawest them together till they seem as one ; and having joys 
under one roof, thou dost bring the joys to be but as in one soul 
under one roof, and all the sorrows to be as in one heart! This 
thou canst do, Love, and blest is life when thou hast done it. 
Then canst thou reach out, thou heavenly Being, Love, thou 
canst reach out to them that are afar, and to them that are un- 
like; and as thou dost gather the near and the like into one, so 
canst thou call the far till they come near, and the unlike till 
they become similar; and we shall know what those afar are feel- 
ing because they have come near, and the beats of their hearts 
strike on ours as waves from coast to coast. And thou makest 
us to know, Love, what thoughts rise in others, though unlike 
and speaking another tongue and in other labors working, differ- 
ent from ours, because thou hast made us — thou alone, Love 
— akin in soul, and hast drowned the unlikeness, and hast 
gathered, as of one blood, all that speak and feel, yea, and that 
feel but speak not, the dumb creatures and the creeping things ! 
And when thou hast done this, Love, and they that are near 
have become as one, and they that are far have come near, then 
dost thou take all as one family into a temple, yea, and show 
them that their home is a temple, and all the riches of the tem- 
ple thou showest them, and dost lead them all together into the 
glory of the joy of the worship of Love, of One, our Father, our 
Strength and our Kedeemer. .0 Love, show us this holy thing! 
Show us what thou art ; teach us, make us humble that we may 
learn. Let us fall down and hear while thou dost speak; and then 
lift us, Love, to lead us to peace, to kindness, to long-suffer- 
ing, to thought, not of ourselves, but of others, that joy may live 
in the earth as is natural, and that we shall not be shut in our 
own hearts but know what others feel. This thou canst do, 
Love! 



So have I spoken of the riches of life which nature is by its 
great abundance of glories to see and hear and know; also of 



100 THE RICHES OF LIFE. 

the riches which our fellow-beings are unto us, by deep joys and 
wealthy marvels of affections, which can do such wondrous 
works and give such great blessings. Now I come to speak of 
the riches of life which each man may be unto himself. This 
is the third point of my sermon, that there is great riches in our 
exercise and experience of ourselves, which is the same as to say 
in labor and obedience. This is because we are such creatures 
as we are, so wondrously framed, with such organs, powers, 
thoughts, with such a place and function. In truth I would say 
any creature is riches unto itself. Yes, for to live is riches. To 
have life, if it be no more than as the ciliae sweep currents of 
pleasant food-bearing water into a polyp's mouth, is riches. 
How 'much more, then, to know that we live, to look forth on 
life and see it, to behold other creatures living, and hence to re- 
flect the more on our own life and the manner of it, how much 
more is this great riches! "For friends and brethren's sake, I 
will never cease to say" that life is very riches in itself. No, 
however some may speak of woes and ills, or however, doing 
much worse, some call life itself a woe or ill, a naught, a failure, 
an idle or wanton sport or jest, or grim jeer of fate, I will not 
cease to say life itself is riches, the riches of God, the wealth of 
the heavens, glorious, divine and holy. What great riches unto 
ourselves, then, may we be in this riches of life, being so rich a 
creature in this riches as to know it and think of it, and look 
forth on it! 

Our riches unto ourselves, as I have said, is our experience 
and exercise with ourselves in the two ways of labor and obedi- 
ence. Every lot has somewhat in it to do and somewhat to bear. 
Men can do naught more than to labor and to bear. Either to 
labor or to bear is obedience. Therefore all our riches unto our- 
selves is in obedience, in what way soever we be led or com- 
manded. And this is right and as it must be; for the Creator is 
the riches of creation. God is the riches of riches, and our obed- 
ience to him must be the only riches that we become unto our- 
selves. 

But now take labor by itself. What a great and good riches 
of life work is! Sometimes it has "a frowning brow for its dis- 
guise," for labor seems as if it would fain steal on us and take 
us slowly to its heart, as a friend does in the making of a new 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 101 

friend, and let us learn gradually what a riches we have gotten 
when we think it but a lumpish slag or dross, mayhap. 

Yes, labor thus often disguises its lovely face, and always 
duty does thus; for each is so very sweet that its sweetness seems 
guarded and hedged about by nature, and not to be had at first 
taste of it, but only after the struggle to open it and explore it ; 
which is only to say in plainer phrase, that fint steps cost, and be- 
ginning i always are hard. But nevertheless labor is a grand and 
noble riches, worthy for a man to cherish, and to be known by a 
man to be riches. 

Work is a riches by what it makes, or what it guards, for us. 
This I speak of first as the lowest way in which work is riches, 
that it brings things contributing to us, things both useful and 
healthful, and brings wealth to us, for labor subdues the earth 
to us. The eye, the ear, takes in great riches, glorious and great 
riches; but the hand must work on the substance of these glo- 
ries to subdue it, and to make some of the splendors at will too, 
to join them in pairs and fours and tens, and in troops, to make 
them serve and enrich us with their marvels of qualities and 
properties and powers. Therefore labor is riches by the riches 
it brings unto us. "Industry need not wish," said Franklin ; 
no, for it gets; it is the power that puts the wish into shape of 
fact; it is the capital that grows other riches, like fruits on a 
tree. But here again we run on the- truth that labor itself is 
riches. This is a truth so shining that it cannot be hidden, but 
shows itself everywhere by the glow around it. "Industry need 
not wish" ; no, truly, it is too rich in itself to be wishing. It will 
have an aim, a great aim, mayhap, a far and mighty aim, that 
shall stay distant a long time, and come nearer, hovering, loom- 
ing, very slowly ; but labor will be content the while and see the 
aim as a grand, a heartening, a towering splendor, like moun- 
tains before the traveler. Doth the traveler bewail the road to 
the hills while their glory is before him all the way, changing 
and looming, and cloud- clothing itself, and again tin draping and 
glowing in the sun at every step of him? Nay, not more does» 
manly labor bemoan itself in wishes. It is too rich in itself. It 
is life at high powers. What should it be wishing? Look there- 
fore no longer at the hand of labor by which it gathers things, 
but at the soul of it, and see that it is great riches of life in 



102 THE RICHES OF LIFE. 

itself, as I have said, and somewhat to be thankful for, and taken 
as no curse, but as a blessing and wealth from God. Labor is self- 
unfolding, and that is great riches. Is anything more wealthy 
to you than to grow? Has any man aught that is so great riches 
to him as himself? If then he grow and unfold and flourish, 
his greatest wealth is rolling up. This is what work does. It 
makes us more; it unfolds and increases us; it opens forth our 
power and unrolls the map of our qualities -to be a guidance and 
a knowledge to us and wakes up our strength like a sleeping lion 
dragged forth and roused until his might amazes and shakes us. 
By naught but labor can a man be this riches to himself, that he 
unfolds and opens and knows himself and sees the might that is 
in him, and has a grand and amazing view of himself, and is 
enraptured by what he may become — by naught but labor. The 
very trees will not root themselves unless they wrestle with bois- 
terous winds and labor in tempests. Therefore, is not labor 
great riches? is it not itself a riches of life? What manner of 
man is he who calls it a vexation, an ignominy, a hateful thing, 
a poverty? What manner of thinker is he? what kind of wor- 
shiper? Nay, no worshiper, but a scoffer; and no thinker, 
but a babbler; nor hardly a man at all, but most unmanly, ser- 
vile, and more like cattle who take no thought beyond what they 
can get for the cropping of it. Yet there lack not men, and 
some who vaunt their wisdom much, who call nature but a 
maimed kind of nature because labor is fixed to it, because work 
is ordained; and life, say they, is a hard and thistle-grown field, 
a poor fare, a starving or else sweating caravan to the grave. 
0! in my soul I do rejoice against such, and pity them 
with a kind of wondering pity, that they make labor a poverty, 
which is, in truth, the most heavenly of riches. I can but sing 
with joy because life is a riches and not a waste. I would stand 
in the market-place and cry it over and over, that life is wond- 
rous riches, that nature, with all glories of sea and land and 
heavens, is riches to every sense, and human fellowship a holy 
wealth by love, and a man great riches unto himself by labor. 
And if any say thai labor is a task, I answer, Labor is life, 
and not to strive and put forth by strength were death. And if 
any one say that wisdom has labor annexed to it, I answer, Not 
so, but labor has wisdom annexed to it; and labor is the oppo- 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 103 

site of drift and nothingness ; and if we rise out of naught, 
cometh wisdom immediately. But labor is a strain, they say, 
and strain is a grievance ; it is wearisome and over- weigh ting, and 
men are huddled by it into gangs of slaves, and the best is bound 
and pent and worn by it, and but staggers along like a beast of 
burden. I answer that often it is a strain, a long, hard strain; 
because so needful a thing is work, and so heaven- weighty, that 
we must carry it, and yet have not learned to carry it. Well, up 
with it, then! lift it! by carrying learn to carry! This is a 
man's part with it, if it be reasonable that it is better to be a 
man than a worm. This is the whole problem. Is it better to be a 
man than a worm? If it be better, then all that a man does 
and must do and carry, is but the riches whereby he is a man and 
not a worm. Labor is yet a great weight, for so vast riches is 
not handled easily nor lifted well until men have learned much. 
Hard struggles, oh how hard! — rude and grinding toils, long 
and hope-hiding fagging, grim travail, pale drudgery — these hang 
on us like iron collars and clank like leg-fetters. But this is the 
drag and grind of the great weight of treasure, while we have 
not learned to pull at it all together. Sometime we shall learn ; 
but it shall be true then, and now is, and forever must be, that 
work is noble. It is the badge of the King on us. Labor itself 
is riches of life, being the self -unfolding of the soul to become 
rich and to know that it is so. Oh, what evil preaching is that 
which calls labor a primal curse! What mean thinking, what 
slave's babble, that it is an ill now, that it is to bear burdens 
and li groan and sweat under a weary life;" as if to sleep, to 
sport and to be at ease, were the riches of life and a man's part 
in creation! No, to work is riches and noble, mighty and high. 
It is profusion of riches, poured all around us like rain on a 
full soil. It is glory and light, honesty and beauty, decoration 
and honor and power — a riches of joy. " The very exercise of 
industry immediately, in itself, is delightful," says Barrow, in his 
strong way, " and hath an innate satisfaction which tempereth 
' all annoyance and even ingratiateth the pains going with it." 
But (i sloth is a base quality, the argument of a mind wretchedly 
degenerate and mean, which is content to grovel in a despic- 
able state, which aimeth at no worthy thing, nor pursueth any- 
thing in a laudable way, which disposeth a man to live gratis 



104 THE EICHES OF LIFE. 

and in gratefully on the public stock, as an insignificant cipher 
among men, as a burden on tbe earth, as a wen of any society, 
culling aliment from it, but yielding no benefit or ornament 
thereto." 

Labor fills the world with a vast net-work, which is 
one of the most rich of all sights. Think of our banks, the 
carrying trade, the roads, the machinery by which transporta- 
tion is effected, the vast bulk of that transportation moving all 
the time — a mighty wonder — the postal service, international 
relations, and the dependence of the ends of the earth on each 
other, happily increasing all the time, great riches triumphing 
over wants — all these fill the mighty artery of life with a torrent. 
No sluggard shall know the riches of life. I mean not that he shall 
be poor in purse, though it is often so; but if he have gold galore, 
still he shall have no riches of life if he lag or lounge slothful 
and lumpish, or if he skip and sport selfish and giddy. For how 
can the riches of life be shared if one take no part in what 
makes all the riches, the universal labor? There is a ceaseless 
labor in all creation; what is he who will not work but an alien, 
then? He hath no state in creation for all moves and labors, 
full of this great riches of work. " The heavens do roll about 
with unwearied motion, the sun and stars do perpetually dart 
their influences; the earth is ever laboring in the birth and 
nourishment of plants ; the plants are drawing sap and sprout- 
ing out fruits and seeds to feed us and propagate themselves ; 
the rivers are running, the seas are tossing, the winds are blus- 
tering to keep the elements sweet in which we live." 

Another riches that comes with work, is thought. Thought 
itself is labor, great labor, of all labor the very greatest, the 
crown of humankind; and therefore no riches of life is like to 
the riches which thought is, for labor is the greatest riches, and 
to think is the greatest labor. " Who doth not find that all the 
power in the world is not able to command, nor all the wealth 
of the Indies to purchase, one notion." Yea, this great riches of 
life, the wonder, glory, animation, exhileration of thoughts echo- 
ing and coursing through us is to be had by any man who will 
labor with his mind, and is not to be bought for any less price 
than the riches of labor. What a wonder of riches, what a great 
and blessed fullness of life, that its greatest riches, which are 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 105 

love and thoughts, may be had by any one who will come after 
them with heart-full and head-full work. And who can utter 
what a riches thought is? The virtue of thinking, the faculty 
of reflecting, the gift of ruminating, the strength of consider- 
ing, the lustiness of reasoning, the sway of ideas — who can tell 
such riches ! Who can count the riches that have gathered? For 
thought has been for ages like the ocean, burying wealth, but 
giving naught back, and losing naught. And all these riches 
washed together in thought's bed he may take of who will use 
the greater riches of the power of the air and the power |of the 
water by thinking, and become a rich magician over the ele- 
ments. How delicate and effluent, but mighty and unbounded, 
like a genie's substance, is the riches of thinking! That we can 
match tilings together, lay one by another and build of them; 
and compare things to see the likeness of them and the unlike- 
ness, and conclude therefrom; and gather the things to be 
put together and the things to be compared, from all parts of 
the earth and all kinds of knowledge; that we can leap any- 
whither in an instant and behold anything by the mind's eye, 
yea, and be with it, and return, and yet in our journey of 
thought have kept the hands busy at their task here and the 
feet walking whither they were pointed; that we can fly like 
light from thought to thought, from truth to truth, from one to 
another curious thing and among discoveries like trees in a 
forest, yea, with swiftness to which light is naught, — what riches 
of " angels, principalities and powers, of height and depth," 
are these faculties! That we can put two things together and 
conclude from them a certainty; that we can gather a host of 
things and conclude from them one law of them all; that we 
can think the eternal and necessary, seeing not merely that 
some things are so, but that so they must be, — this is "appre- 
hension like a god;" this, by " deep calling unto deep," is to 
look verily into the face of God, not to die, as the old 
chronicle threatens, but the more to live. This the psalmist has 
expressed: " Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid 
thine hand upon me! How precious are thy thoughts unto me, 
God! how great is the sum of them!" what riches of life 
is this power of thinking! What a glory of exercise, till the 
mind's countenance, as the prophet says of the body's health- 



106 THE RICHES OF LITE. 

ful visage, "is as sapphire!" What a wonder of forthgoing! 
What riches of excursion ! What wealthy voyage as of a rich ship 
on the ocean under sun and star unto far rich regions to return with 
still more riches of lustrous stuffs and gems ! By the wings of the 
riches of thought, flying not away like the riches of gold which take 
to themselves wings, but carrying us upward above constraints, 
and making us to go through all bars like a spirit, we are lifted 
into our pure selves, as if undraped of the body that has 
weight. For often when earnestly I have been thinking, and 
when with double thinking I have been setting the thoughts 
with words, I have been translated and lifted so out of my 
body's presence and senses, that I have come back to my tene- 
ment, with a shock, as if I had burst suddenly through a roof or 
flown in at a skylight, and with Paul I cry, " I know a man 
caught up even to the third heaven, whether in the body or out 
of the body I know not; God knoweth!" 

Another riches of life by labor is health, which simply is 
the strength and completeness of the bodily part of this earthly 
life. With labor, which is exercise of ourselves, comes sound- 
ness, haleness, freshness ; we bloom, we are hardy and stanch, 
we have a flush, a vigor, "more ruddy in body than rubies, the 
visage as of sapphire." With inaction, sleeping and ease, and 
getting somewhat for nothing, come distempers and taints, 
infections, plagues; we decay, we are polluted; lameness, halt- 
ing, withering fall on us. No one knows what real health is, 
as finely has been said, unless he feel every moment like stand- 
ing up and shouting with joy, to give thanks for the mere bless- 
ing of existence. And spiritual health is like unto bodily health, 
in rejoicing in simply being, in being here, and in knowing this 
great life that we have here. As to be in bodily health is to re- 
joice in mere existence, so to be in spiritual and mental health 
is to rejoice wonderfully in the riches of life, and to spread out, as 
it were, the members of the soul into them, to disport, to go about 
and delight and put forth strength in them, as the body waves 
its members, arms and legs, and pushes forth with ecstasy, glow 
and glee, in the air and water, and stamps the earth with the 
foot and runs for very joy and power! 

Such riches of life is labor that even forced labor, hard and 
heavy, too heavy, yet hath its worth and power in behalf of 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 107 

good for us, and is simply too heavy riches piled in one spot, 
too heavy for the time and too much gathered. A. friend wrote 
me "How blessed, after all, is that business which keeps us 
so at work that we cannot be lonely," and another wrote me, "I 
have my anxiety and pain, but thanks be to God I am at work 
again." Therefore if labor is often heavy, remember that it is 
but a heavy shield, very heavy mayhap, but still a shield, and 
behind it we escape many hurts and pains and pangs and wants. 
A man laboring is like one carrying a long rope coiled round 
and round his neck, which he cannot unwind, which fain 
he would cut in half, or throw away all of it if he can not be 
rid of a part. But when he falls into a pit, then is the rope 
immediately his riches, more than all his other possessions, the 
means whereby he climbs out of that pit. Yea, a riches of life 
is labor! a riches of riches! so blessed! so beautiful! a riches like 
gold! so strong and fruitful a riches, like deep soils and watered 
valleys! Who is not decked that labors? Who that works is not 
made full of man-worth, and shall not lift up his head high, and 
walk proudly, and see the sky nod to him and the sun salute 
him? Of late I went up into a high building and took a 
look out over a great city. I noticed what never I had seen be- 
fore, the steam-pipes on nearly every roof in that dense working 
part of the city, pouring forth their white and beautiful vapors. 
It seemed to me, as I stood admiring, like a gala head-gear of 
labor. I thought of all the industry, of the riches of the in- 
dustry, that those cloudy vapors meant, those feathery orna- 
ments. It seemed to me the city was dressed for the blithe riches 
of work, clad in red bonnets waving with white plumes. 

Another part of the exercise of ourselves is bearing, endur- 
ing. Shall I call endurance a riches of life? Shall I say that 
bearing of pain and grief must be called a wealth of life? Is 
this a false, tricksey, sentimental gospel? Do I but play with 
words if I call endurance a riches? Well, why not a riches? In 
my soul I love chivalry in life. 'Twas a noble quality in the 
old knighthood, that the knight sought arduous adventures. 
'Twas not to be at ease, but to be at pains, that he donned armor. 
The greater his toils, vigils, exposures, sufferings, the more his 
honor and glory and the more he drew to his soul, as a rich 
garment around him, the knowledge that he was indeed a knight. 



108 THE RICHES OF LIFE. 

This was the ideal. Why not such an ideal for life? Nay, how 
little and shameful, how empty of all honor seems the ideal of life 
about us, that it is comfort and ease, that pleasures and soft charms 
are its riches! — Not so, but strength and power, and to be a grand 
human being, to be doing and bearing because this is arduous and 
noble, to be exercising ourselves, to be showing our strength by 
straining our strength to great actions of doing or bearing or trying, 
this is exalted, this is the fruit of the spirit, this is the outpouring of 
the earth, this delivers us joys and a vast sense of life which itself 
is very fire and flame of joy. And therefore, with grand bearing 
and enduring enters great riches of life. Shall I say that to 
bear richly is greater and grander than to labor richly? Yea, I 
will say so; for to bear is a kind of labor — to wrestle, to struggle 
and to toil, to bear up mightily, to be hardy, strong and straining 
when tumbling things would beat us down. This is labor; but 
it is labor with advantage of good ground, for it is labor on our- 
sleves. If labor on the earth be bright riches, what riches is labor 
on ourselves? To bear, therefore, to endure nobly, quietly, not 
courting pain but not being a runaway from it, to lift a heavy 
weight and strain to it, yet groaning not unto others about it, 
because it is a brave duty and a human part, what riches is 
this! what proper glory! what fitness for a man! what riches of 
life above all ease and fortune and pleasures! Yea, I will call 
sorrow a riches of life. Is not this shown by the riches of soul 
needful unto sacred sorrow? For the empty, vain, frivolous, 
tripping and light-minded, they sorrow not, nor can they until 
they be rich above vanity and light things. They maybe peevish 
or vexed or troubled, and cry much with pains and losses; but 
vexation and troubles are menial things. Sorrow belongs to roy- 
alty of soul, and is divine. Close with it comes riches, oh, great 
riches, that lift life into the divine light and show it truly, that it 
is of God, and full of the riches of God, which shall make peace. 
Eiches of obedience, of knowledge, of wide knowledge and far 
sight, of power to feel, to restrain, to rule, to be strong, to bless 
God, oh, let us bethink us what riches this is! What a reason 
for living, what a seal on life in God's image, what honor and 
great riches! 

I have called laboring and bearing obedience. This is not 
to be forgotten. Obedience is the source of great riches in life* 



THE RICHES OF LITE. 109 

for obedience is the following of His will who hath made all 
riches, and we can come at them only by Him whose they are. 
And all things are filled with his power and spirit, so that if we 
obey with love and piety, all things work together for good to ns, 
as Paul says; that is, to give us riches of life, and show life to be 
a great riches. If all things obey him, and we, too, obey, we 
are in league with all and hare all things at hand and around 
us. marshaled well; and they serve us, agree with us, and life is 
full of their- riches for us. Obedience of spirit toward God is to 
meet what comes to us, either to do or to bear, lift it up and 
cany it indoors, and take it, not rejecting nor bemoaning, wailing 
nor muttering, nor running frorn it. This obedience toward God 
is like unto knowledge or science toward nature. An economist 
says: ,; Through virtue and labor to knowledge, through the 
control which knowledge may give over the forces of nature to 
leisure, and through leisure to welfare, not only material, but 
mental and spiritual, appears to be the method of evolution 
which the power that makes for righteousness has established as 
the law governing the portion of human life which is spent on 
this earth while man dwells in the material body.*' So, first by 
labor and discipline forced on us comes the obedient spirit, and 
by this spirit labor rises into riches, and discipline into a power 
which is beauty; and then by obedience we are led, led and 
shown the way, and thereupon all things help us. Then comes 
peace and leisure, and thereby new knowledge and life, new 
joy and riches and good. And so the blessedness of religion 
comes down on us, because we have climbed unto life's riches. Our 
praise and thought and victory go up to God, and when they 
come back from him we call them his blessings; and so they were 
when they rose up unto him from us; and they come back '*' filled 
with immortality." The religions feeling rises like the mist from 
the earth, which, says the old poet, returned again to water the 
ground. Think of the source of life from which we spring. 
We gaze, we think on all the riches of creation, from the minute 
life which is so wonderful and so perfect, so enriched with beauty, 
so agile in the water drop, to the enormous spheres and trans- 
cendent spaces of the heavens: we think of human riches, love, 
experience; and religion says to the lowly, to the obedient, Your 
interests, your needs, your longings, aspirations, labors, sorrows, 



110 THE EICHES OF LIFE. 

are a part of the riches of God's world. Fear not. You are not 
dropped from the hand that guides the stars. Strive, watch, 
pray, trust; you shall see the face of God. — It is delightful to 
notice in the Bible the constant song of joy therein, to observe 
how the singers and prophets and moralists therein cry aloud that 
we must " rejoice evermore," because life is such riches of God. 
The great book is full of such sayings: li Good tidings of great 
joy to all people;" " Enter into our Master's joy that our joy 
may be full, and such as no man can take from us;" " Light is 
sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart;" 
" God's law rejoiceth the heart, and is sweeter than the honey 
and the honeycomb;" "In his presence is fulness of joy, yea, 
exceeding joy;" "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and 
all her paths are peace;" ' 'Believing, you rejoice with joy unspeak- 
able, and full of glory;" "In the shadow of thy wings will I 
rejoice;" "My heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I 
praise him;" " The hope of the righteous shall be gladness;" 
" Kejoice in hope;" " A lively hope;" " An inheritance incor- 
ruptible and undefiled;" "They that love thy name shall be 
joyful in thee." 

" Is life worth living?" A wretched question. As if the 
blind should ask whether sight be worth having; or the deaf, 
Is sound worth knowing? For who would ask these things but 
the blind or the deaf? Tell me — Is song worth singing? Is music 
worth making? Is refreshment by water worth its time and 
cost? Yes, if there be thirst for song and music and cleanli- 
ness ! And the soul thirsting for them will take song and music as 
they are, and love them, and bring them forth until their riches 
pour out like mountain waters. So, if there be a thirst for life, 
who that thirsts for it will ask if it be worth while to live, or 
whether better be a man than a worm? A thirst for life — what 
is it? A wish not to die? No, but a wish not to be dead. To 
die is like being snatched or rapt away from an orchard while 
my hand is on the fruit, while I am full of delight of eye in the 
color and shape of it, and my fingers wonder at its soft covering, 
and my mouth has the taste of it, and all my body is refreshed 
with the streams of it. But to be dead is like lying in that 
orchard a lump of clay, while the breezes blow, the trees mur- 
mur, the birds sing and fruits ripen, and I know them not, and 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. Ill 

all these riches drop around me where I he a clod — yea, and 
soon they cover me up and put me away that my body be not 
noisome to them that are athirst for life, who go thither for the 
riches of the fruits of it. Oh, I hope that with every day of joy 
we shall walk more wonder-struck, more reverent, more humble, 
more adoring, amid all these glorious forms of living power. 
Then the riches of life will make us rich, will become our riches; 
for each one has what he loves and is what he adores. Then we 
shall grow large in mind and heart by reason of knowing the 
great riches of life. We shall be able to add to our own little care 
or duty or labor or joy or sorrow (I say little, yea, though it be 
much, still I say little) the experiences and the powers of all 
other hving creatures, and then thoughts, so that ail that is in 
us will be made deeper, and we shall take the riches of life : and 
joy will become an earnest and solemn force within us. 
A poet sings thus: 

" To win, to find, to meet and to possess, 

Delights thee in the walk of mortal life : 

For lo ! they win, they find now heavenly things : 

This one a bride ! That mother there a child ! 

A son. a wanderer comes back home again 

To his old father [***** 

The housewife's batch of bread has turned out well ! 

The flax has prospered '. The old orchard-tree 

Will bear once more whole baskets-full of fruit ! 

The children are for winter warmly clad ! 

The first wee tooth shines in the infant's mouth ! 

Even such small joys thy heart can understand ; 

And privily thou seekest some dark nook. 

And weepest a short moment, with dry eves. 

So liv'st thou glad for men and for thyself." 



Now I come to the practical matter, or moral question. By 
what means may we acquire the riches of life? How are we to 
enjoy these riches that are so plentiful and so glorious? I 
answer, Simply by observing our place and right relations toward 
them. And this place of ours, and these relations, are these: 
First, to take the riches. If you consider this, it is not a little 
thing; for it is really a great and rare wisdom to lift up and 
carry with us all the good things that fall at our feet as we 



112 THE RICHES OF LIFE 

go. Secondly, to hinder no other in taking the riches; this is the 
law of justice. Thirdly,' to help others to take the riches; this is 
the law of kindness. But the second and third, that is, the rules 
to hinder not others, but to help, give power for the first 
rule, the rule, namely, to take these riches as we meet them. 
Not to hinder others, and then needfully to help others, are nec- 
essary to our own power of taking. For nothing so eats up our 
virtue to take the riches of life as selfishness; and it is selfish 
not to be just, and not to be helpful. Now this we shall see if 
we ask specially and carefully what selfishness is, and then how 
it stands related to the riches of life in the three kinds of these 
riches. 

What then is selfishness? I answer that selfishness is not 
merely the seeking of things for ourselves ; for we are commanded 
to love our neighbor as ourselves, which at least I interpret to 
mean that we may be concerned for our own interests and 
benefits. Besides, if we care for others, why not for ourselves 
too? — for each one, surely, is as considerable and important as 
an other one, and, therefore, a man as reasonably may care for 
himself as for any other person. If, moreover, we look not to 
our own good, how can we serve others? For if we care not for 
ourselves, soon we shall lose all power and substance to serve 
any others with. Therefore, I say, that selfishness means not, 
indeed, the seeking of benefits for ourselves, for this is both right 
and needful. 

But let us look more closely. There are three factors in 
this question: First, each man's own self; secondly, the persons 
that are near, belonging to each one in his own special little 
realm of life; thirdly, all the world, the great family of man. 
Now, among these, and in devotion to each of them, there is a 
due balance which is order, goodness, help, happiness. Hence 
it follows that there may be evil devotion to others as well as to 
ourselves ; and this evil devotion may be a bad concentration on 
either those dear ones close at hand and hard by us both in body 
and in heart, or also — and sometimes so it is — a thoughtless, 
unheeding and hurtful devotion to the great whole of the human 
family, neglecting those that are near. Selfish action is that 
kind of bad action which disturbs the due balance between one- 
self and those near by and the whole great world, unsettling that 



THE RICHES OP LIFE. 113 

balance by excess of interest for ourselves; that is to say, action 
for our own purpose without due regard to the good of .the whole 
also. Selfish thinking is to think more toward and for ourselves 
than will keep the balance of our doing and our action right; 
and selfish feeling is to feel more for ourselves than will keep 
that due and right balance of action. Thus selfish thinking and 
selfish feeling are such as join not our owd interests with the 
whole, but would follow our own without the whole, without due 
concern or plan for the whole. 

This is all very plain. But now I remark what begins to 
reach toward the centre of this subject, that the danger of excess 
in devotion to either of these factors is different for each, and the 
greatest danger is that we shall be badly and harmfully, or cruelly, 
devoted to ourselves. The disturbance of the balance is most at 
hazard in that way. Which is to say, we run every day in life 
more risk of being devoted unduly to our own interests, than of 
thinking unduly of the pleasures of those near us, or of the good 
of all the world. This is because we have come up from a state 
of brute selfishness, and the conflict, the struggle, the war in such 
a state, still exists in us as a tendency, and even as a tradition. 
So that by the tendency we incline to great regard of ourselves, 
and by the tradition we lean to the praise of this self-love, 
declaring it right and wise. This bias is reinforced by the 
affections, because therein we tend to be selfish, not only for our- 
selves, but in behalf of those we love against the whole. Again 
it is roused and enforced by the fierce competitions of life, by the 
bad social order which now makes it so very hard to take care 
well of oneself except as one seems to be doing it in strife with 
others. Finally, the slow progress of mankind tends to excess 
of thinking of ourselves, yet this slow progress is necessary; 
that is, there is a need of all being good together for any one to 
be at his best, or even very good. Any one may act wrongly by 
himself easily; but one can act well, or be at his best, easily, 
only if all act rightly together. Hence it is that the slow 
progress of mankind and the continual wrongs about us make it 
so hard for us to free ourselves from ourselves, and climb above 
this danger of excess of self-interest. 

But now if this be the danger, it makes a difference indeed, 
and is very important, what is the state and tendency of a man's 



114 THE EICHES OF LIFJ3. 

heart — the state and tendency, I say, of a man's heart, whether 
toward himself or toward others, that is, whether in the direction 
of the danger, or happily and blessedly contrary to this danger. 
Here we touch the subject at its depth; here we come to the 
practical point in these thoughts of the riches of life, that selfish- 
ness or unselfishness lies in the deep heart as a constant motive, 
and that selfishness, as I shall show, makes ns poor amid the 
riches of life. 

It appears, now, that it is not selfish to think of ourselves, 
nor to feel for ourselves; but — I pray you mark — to think of our- 
selves first, and feel for ourselves most. Which is to say, when 
occasion or choice comes to us, as daily they come in great 
numbers, what first leaps to a man's mind and heart, the thought 
for himself or for others? Which has the instantaneous forthcome? 
Then, after that, which feels h&ioxmost — himself or others? These 
are the test questions revealing the selfish or unselfish soul. With 
the brutes, from whom, so it now seems conceded and gradually 
more and more known, we have slowly climbed by divine upward 
drift, it is each one for himself. But now, if reason bring not 
the sense of one for others, and for all, it makes man a more 
dangerous animal than any other, but no nobler. As Froude 
has said, "Where all are selfish, the sage is no better than the 
fool, only rather more dangerous." The growth must be toward 
balanced thought for oneself, for others, and for the whole. 
This balance gives shape and nobility to growing power. ■ 

Now, if I mistake not, this law or definition of selfishness, 
that it is thinking of oneself first, and then feeling for oneself 
most, throws great light on life, and shows us our true qualities. 
For example: It is selfish to harm any for our own pleasure, for 
this is to feel for ourselves most. It is also selfish not to try to 
benefit others with our own benefiting, for this is to think of our- 
selves not only first, but only. Again, if we see unfortunates, 
the poor, the maimed, the sick, the grieved, what shall we say 
instinctively? Ah, my friends, I do think this is a question 
reaching very deep down into one's soul — what instinctively shall 
we do? Eejoice that we are not like those unfortunates? That 
is selfishness — feeling for ourselves most. Shall we grieve that 
they are not so happy as we are? Will that be our instinctive' 
A eeling, and first ? A searching test! That is righteous and 



THE EICHES OF LIFE. 115 

unselfish, for it is thinking of others, and feeling for them, first 
and most. This view of selfishness shows also why many per- 
sons are so very selfish in petty things, and so thoughtlessly 
selfish; as, for example, always taking the best of things if they 
be by, even the fairest looking of fruit when others are by to 
whom we should offer it, preferring them, and the most comfort- 
able place while others are standing near — because such persons 
think of themselves first, and feel for themselves most. I will 
stop to make a practical application, because I like not to see a 
growing tendency among men, which I observe in the public 
vehicles constantly, not to arise and give their places to women. 
I have observed this curious fact, that a man who will keep his 
seat when a woman stands by unseated, nevertheless by no 
means will scramble into a seat which is made vacant, if a 
woman be by unseated ; and yet I see not why he may not seize 
at once what he may keep afterwards. Now, if, with that gentle 
deference which ought to be in every man's soul for a woman, 
he thinks of her first, and feels for her most, he will be as 
uncomfortable in retaining his seat, as he would think himself a 
boor if he scrambled for it. This will help us see how 
actions shall be judged, whether they be selfish or not. I propose 
to you this simple test of time as to thought, and then of amo nt 
as to feeling. Which first leaps to your mind? Yourself or 
your neighbor and friend, and the whole? And when you have 
had the thought, which then do you feel for most? 

But now you may say, How shall we meet the practical diffi- 
culty of judging? The conditions are very complex. How shall 
we judge always what acts are chose that keep the right balance 
of these three factors, ourselves, our near ones, and the great 
world? Ah, but this very definition and test of selfishness helps 
us to answer, for we have seen that selfishness is a matter of 
impulse and feeling, impulse to think of ourselves first, and to 
feel for ourselves most. Now if a man have strong sense, good 
mind, clear thinking, and he be unselfish, the impulse will leap 
in his heart to think of others first, and then his strong sense 
easily will find the right measure of care and pains for himself. He 
will run little risk of deciding ill, because his impulse will be 
against the chief danger, and his sound sense rule his impulse. 
But if his heart leap for himself, in the line of the danger, 



116 THE EICHES OF LIFE. 

then his sense will be given to finding great, ample and lucrative 
ways to feed his own wishes; and as his heart leaps so will he 
follow, and be clean gone over into the peril, and see naught 
clearly but his own selfish wishes. 

With this clear view, now, of selfishness, that it lies in the 
first thought being for ourselves, and the most feeling for our- 
selves, apply it to the riches of life, and it will appear, if I 
mistake not, that the selfish soul can take little of these riches. 
As the riches of life which nature is, comes unto us, the glories 
and lights and joys of creation, how can selfishness see and know 
these friends of the soul? Its eye is turned inward to look at 
its own greeds or profits, for its own grabbings, not outward 
turned, to see what matter will fill the eye with light and beauty. 
Again, selfishness never will seek knowledge and beauty for their 
own high sakes and purely, being occupied all with its own self, 
and its own advantages to be obtained; and when knowledge 
and beauty are not sought for their own pure sakes, we fall 
very far short of the riches of them. Again, there will not be 
humility enough in the selfish to take the riches of nature and 
knowledge. For of all vanity what greater than to deem one- 
self worthy to be one's own complete and perfect pursuit and 
care? "What," says Joubert, "possibly can one introduce into 
a mind already full, and full of self?" I know it is said often 
that a moral and lofty tone of mind is not needful to the highest 
and most quickened enjoyment of nature. We are told that if 
one be endowed with sense of harmony in colors and sounds, 
the perception of shapes and lines, the symmetry and beauty of 
curves, then he will see the charms of nature and rejoice in 
them, and have them all turn their riches into him, even though 
he be a treacherous and selfish soul. No, it is not so. Selfish- 
ness never can go beneath the surface of shape and color, 
nor know the beauty which is soul and meaning, nor see the 
divinity in nature, being contrary to it. 

The next riches of life, I said, was human love. Selfish- 
ness has not this riches, nor can have, nor be aught but against 
the very nature of this riches. For selfishness is the thinking 
of oneself first, and feeling for oneself most. But if love mean 
anything under heaven, it means to think of another first, and 
feel for that other most. Selfishness, therefore, never attains the 



THE EICHES OF LIFE. 117 

eminence of the bliss of love, nor knows indeed anything but 
the shell and outward show of it. " The selfish affect no man 
otherwise than he seemeth able to serve their turn. All their 
shows of friendship and respect are mercenary and mere trade." 
Besides, selfishness eats away gratefulness. This follows of 
necessity on the pride and conceit of selfish men, because, not 
being humble-minded, and being so eager to get things, they take 
everything as due to them ; and how can one be grateful for his 
own? And yet gratefulness, the dear delicious sense of obliga- 
tion, leaning on, resting on, owing to, some one we love, is one 
of the most fair traits, the most blissful necessities, the sweetest 
rewards, of the affections. I know that some speak of love as 
being possibly selfish. They combine the two words together. 
They say there is a love which is real and must be called love, 
but is in truth a fierce "passion for possession." Away! I will 
refuse to name love a " passion for possession." Whether the 
English language need another word for whatever feeling that 
may be which is phrased as a "passion for possession," I say 
not, though often I have wished for such a word. But, however, 
I will not use for it that title of love which means elements as 
pure and simple and as forth-putting into another's life, as the 
creativeness of God. Fichte says, " The enjoyment of a single 
hour passed happily in the pursuit of art or science far out- 
weighs a whole lifetime of sensual enjoyment, and before this 
picture of blessedness the mere sensual man, could it be brought 
home to him, would sink in envy and dismay." And, in like 
manner, say I that one hour, or one fleeting moment, of the 
purity of love outweighs a lifetime or universe of " passion for 
possession," ay, and is a purity and heavenliness of joy before 
which the passionate man, could it be brought home to him, 
would sink in envy and dismay. When sometimes I have dwelt 
on this topic in my lone thinking on the sights of the world, and 
in my weighing of friendships — for who must not do this, sad 
though it be? — I have seen that there are two modes of loving, 
the passionate and the tender, and that the passionate is really 
but a selfish thirst for having, and the tender, a divine thinking 
of another first, and feeling for that other most. Of the joys of 
this love which makes the supreme riches of life, the selfish never 
can dream. 



118 THE EICHES OF LIFE. 

Here enters what I said of this second domain of riches, 
that it is a delight of love an I lib&rty. You will remember that I 
promised to tell you why specially I added liberty. 'Tis because 
there is no true love without reverence for freedom; and this 
" passion for possession," the bastard that artfully puts on 
the robe and purple of the pure stock of love, always will show its 
base, fierce falseness by invading liberty. True love leaves 
the one free who is beloved, treads very gently and softly on the 
threshhold of his mind, his will, his nature; will not encroach, 
will not oppress, nor overpower. But selfishness oppresses, 
desiring only to own, to have, to bind to itself. Oh, the misery, 
the death, that follow this trampling on personal dignity in love, 
on the liberty of the mind and the will ! The torment and shame 
of it, the wretched fate of being so degraded, subject to another, 
under him and pressed to death, the will all destroyed and 
lifeless, individual features suppressed, crushed out of all 
shape, the desires and good pleasure and purpose and self-direc- 
tion of the mind bruised to an aching livid flesh, not daring to 
decide aught, but always waiting for leave, always begging grace 
or allowance, or hinting a wish fearfully, such abjectness, such 
slavery — who can bear it? Who can inflict it but the most cruel 
or the most unthinking? When 'tis done, when 'tis wreaked 
and brooked, love flies away doubly; for neither can the one 
who is trampled love very dearly the heart that grinds down 
the foot, nor can he, the trampler, love well the thing lying 
meanly under his heel. " There is no friendship without 
equality;" no, nor love of lovers either, whether besought or 
wedded, however some prate loosely or vilely of this great human 
joy in equal state. There may be indeed a " passion of posses- 
sion" without equality; jea, I think that that hatefulness seeks 
the pliant and weak who may be bended and looped into any 
shape and tied up in any manner. But there is no love without 
equality of spirit standing at one level of dignity and looking 
face into face and eye into eye at one height of mutual respect 
and observance. 'Tis not needful that the two shall have like 
riches or position or genius or knowledge, if they have the like 
holy grace of revering another's will, freedom and personal 
being, not to tread on it or assault it or touch it rudely. With- 
out this mutual and reverent liberty,! say again there is no love; 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 119 

and I would I could cry it like a trumpet till every household 
rang with it — no love, naught worth that heaven-name, naught 
living, as love lives, but a mere vogue, a show, a simulation, a 
mask painted on a dead face. For love is so mighty an exercise 
of the spirit and so stretches all the powers of the soul, needing 
the greatest nobility to do it well, that no art, no conquest nor 
prowess is to be likened to it — above any poetry and music, a 
greater feat of soul than any eloquence, more to be admired than 
reasoning, than the making of science or the collecting of history 
or any human glory. How then can loving be done w T ell by the 
broken in spirit, bowed down, set at the beck of another, wait- 
ing a master's nod, a slave, a helot, an understrapper, — how can 
such a bound, badged, abased vassal, a cowed creature, a 
groaning spirit, despising its portion, come to the whole great 
estate of love? 'Tis not possible; yet more possible than that 
the enslaver, wiio has made a fellow-being an underling, over- 
ridden a tender brow and trampled down a will, can come to 
nobleness of love or be seized of the wide freehold of it. Love 
in tyranny is but half itself, either in delight or in power, and 
no more can fly the heavens than a bird with one wing severed. 
And wiiat human power indeed is itself, or whole, if unfreed? 
or what can stretch a wing above the earth if the other wing, 
freedom, be gone? As Cato said he would fight, not to be free 
himself, but to live in a country of freemen, so must the twain 
wedded into one draw the sword of the spirit, not each for his 
own good pleasure, but to live together in a twx>-peopled world 
of the free! Then come light and joy, tenderness, courage, 
brightness, wit, beauty, health and strength, nimbleness, under- 
takings, deeds. Naught can measure the force and bliss of the 
heart in love where the will of each is left free, personal, indi- 
vidual, unhurt, revered, — self-respect and dignity builded on love 
and reverence, like a fair city on a two-peaked hill. This is 
a vast double riches of life, the joy and riches of love and lib- 
erty, as I have said; but these riches are not for the selfish man. 
He can get but part of the double wealth, and that but a grovel- 
ing portion, lacking the other wiug w T herewith to soar. For 
selfishness can leave nothing free which can be gotten, clutched, 
put to its own use and purpose, made over into its owm pattern, 
and wholly pounced on, usurped, appropriated. I say the 



120 THE EICHES OF LIFE. 

selfish man is estopped of love. Let it be cried aloud over and 
over that selfishness can not love. For it, this pure riches of 
life exists not; and how better, or more like love, is a " pas- 
sion to possess" a person than a greed for owning things? 

But if this now be the case with the nearest, that there is 
no joy of love, and no knowledge of the riches of life for the 
selfish, how much more is this so toward the more distant! 
The selfish man will be displeased with the excellence and good 
things of others, because they are not his. Hence, others' 
riches are his poverty. What a poverty that is! And if we 
take the widest scope, the relation of the mind, heart and soul 
to mankind, the power to find the riches of life in this wide view — 
the truth is the same, that these riches belong only to the unsel- 
fish. For the unselfish man who thinks of another first, and of 
the whole first, beholds the quality of mankind unrolled like a 
fair map of a fair realm. Ah! friends, we gain great power 
to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see. Unsel- 
fishness is divining. Easily it sees the balance of right 
action, as I have said. We shall not be long deciding, nor 
go far astray, if our impulse be contrary to the danger, and we 
wish before all to see what is due and truthful and right. But 
what is this? To see what is true, to make right decisions, to 
know the balance, is naught but the same as to spread society 
fair and beautiful before us, as it is in nature and destiny — a 
transporting sight, a glorious riches and great wealth; but never 
for the selfish, who, deciding not rightly in this delicate balance, 
see society all awry, one estranged from another, and all in dis- 
order and jangle, like bells out of tune, though hung for 
sweet concords. 

Finally, come we to the third realm of the riches of life, 
namely, labor and obedience. Again I say, selfishness cannot 
take these riches. Selfishness loves ease, complaining of labor. 
Also what sense has it of that implication of one with another 
which is the human family, in which also lies the urgency of 
labor, that all must work together fairly, since no man can live 
or stand by himself? For selfishness thinks of itself first, and 
as first, and feels for itself most; whereas all are of equal 
import. ''In reason," says Barrow, { ' is it not very absurd that 
any man should look on himself as more than a single person? 



THE B1CHES OF LIFE. 121 

* * * May not any man reasonably have the same appre- 
hensions and inclinations as we may have? May not any man 
justly proceed in the same manner as we may do? Will they 
not, seeing us mainly affect our private interests, be induced, 
and in a manner forced, to do the like. Then what need can 
there be for progging and scrambling for things, and in the con- 
fusion thence arising, what quiet, what content, can we enjoy? 

* * * As we are all born members of the world, as we are 
compacted into the commonwealth, as we are incorporated into 
any society, as we partake in any conversation or company, so 
by mutual support, aid, defence, comfort, not only the common 
welfare first, but our own particular benefit consequently, doth 
subsist. By hindering or prejudicing them, the public first, in 
consequence our particular, doth suffer. Our thriving by the com- 
mon prejudice will in the end turn to our own loss. As if one 
member sucketh too much nourishment to itself and then swelleth 
into an exorbitant bulk, the whole thence incurreth disease, so 
coming to peiish or languish, whence consequently that irregular 
member will fall into a participation of ruin or decay, so it is in 
the state of human corporations. He that in way unnatural or 
unjust — for justice is that in human societies which nature is in 
the rest of things — draweth unto himself the juice of profit or 
pleasure, so as thence to grow beyond his due size, doth thereby 
not only create distempers in the public body, but worketh mis- 
chief and pain to himself." Wherefore, I say, that the dignity, 
the grace, the riches of labor is not for selfishness, that delves 
thus but to make all a disease, an infamy, and counts work but 
a pain if it cannot have therewith, too, as much gain as can be 
heaped up from others despoiled of it. 

Selfishness, again, hates obedience. For the selfish man 
thinks of himself first, that is, as best. Therefore-, he would 
command or le*ad always, never follow, nor obey, nor be second. 
Also he feels for himself most. Therefore, he would have his 
own will, and never suffer aught even that another may not suf- 
fer. Moreover, selfishness has no humility, as before I have 
said, for the man who thinks of himself always first and feels 
for himself most, must do so surely because he thinks he deserves 
such a first place, and he must think he ought to have it in 
others' thoughts as well as his own. Hence he will know naught 



122 THE RICHES OP LIFE. 

of the blessed humility with riches which obedience is. 

Here must I not omit one of the great riches of life of which 
I have said naught, the rich stores of labor and obedience in the 
memory when old age draws on. " It is to live twice, when we 
can enjoy the recollections of our former life." But what recol- 
lections can we enjoy? Only those against which selfishness is 
set and will have naught to do with them, and cannot have to 
do with them — the glories of nature and of man, the blessed 
riches of beauty, not open to the selfish soul, as I have said. 
But glowing memories, if gathered by the eye of love and hum- 
ble observation, do inhabit the soul to store it like a great ware- 
house with riches. A beautiful example I have met in the 
life of Niebuhr, the celebrated Danish traveler. " When old, 
blind, and so infirm that he was able only to be carried from his 
bed to his chair, he used to describe to his friends the scenes 
which he had visited in his early days with wonderful minute- 
ness and vivacity. When they expressed their astonishment, he 
told them that as he lay in bed, all visible objects shut out, the 
pictures of what he had seen in the East continually floated 
before his mind's eye, so that it was no wonder he could speak 
of them as if he had seen them yesterday. With like vividness 
the deep intense sky of Asia, with its brilliant and twinkling 
host of stars, which he had so often gazed at by night, or its 
lofty vault of blue by day, was reflected, in the hours of stillness 
and darkness, on his inmost soul." Of this traveler it has been 
remarked that in his many journeyings, and rich accounts 
thereof, he leaves himself strangely out of view; by which it 
was that he piled up such riches within himself. The life of the 
heart's blissful recollections and scenes of undying beauty, these 
are not for the selfish, nor the fruits of labor and obedience in 
the spirit of law and duty and service; not for the selfish, but 
for those who by love, labor and humility become like these 
virtues. Unto them, the riches of life become in the soul beauti- 
ful pictures, and truly labor-stores and obedience-peace; and 
they pour their riches into the memory of old age. Whence, 
perhaps, it is one of those wondrous marvels of our constitution 
whereon we must look with devout eyes, that age delights 
to look backward; for this is but to view the great riches of life, 
which wait on him who has loved them, single-minded, but 
wished not to get them apart for himself. The law is clear, 



THE RICHES OF LIFE. 123 

wonderful and noble, that " virtue indeed will give us power and 
place in the world; but if we seek the power, we have not the 
virtue." So the riches of life, beauty, grandeur, feeling, mighty 
riches of joy and understanding, will come to the soul of humble 
knowledge-seeking, of steady labor, of faithful obedience ; but if 
one seek the riches, he has not such a soul; nay, but is one who 
of himself thinks first, and for himself feels most. The riches 
of life would be far greater in their joyful forms than they 
are, if all men were generous and loving; which s # hows what 
a solemn responsibility and weight of the Father's ordaining is 
laid on us here. For then the riches would be increased by our- 
selves, whose powers of heart and soul are the greatest riches 
of all earth's riches. But as it is, the riches of these so beau- 
tiful forms have to be replaced in great, and very weary, part, by 
the riches of sorrow and of too hard laboring. 

Finally, how can the selfish man love God, the riches of 
the riches " The Eternal is in man and surrounds him at all 
times," says Fichte; " man has but to forsake the transitory and 
perishable [which is to say, the use of nature and men for his 
own glory, power and pleasure] with which the true life never 
can associate, and thereupon the Eternal, with all its blessed- 
ness, forthwith will come and dwell with him. We cannot win 
blessedness, but we may cast away our wretchedness [which is 
simply to seek no more our own glory, power and pleasure,] and 
thereupon blessedness forthwith of itself will supply the empty 
place. Blessedness is repose in the One and Eternal, wretched- 
ness is vagrancy amid the manifold and transitory [which is 
struggles and thoughts to use nature and men for our own glory, 
power or pleasure] : and, therefore, the condition of our becom- 
ing blessed is the return of our love from the many to the 
One;" or to love the One in the many; as Augustine hath it, " To 
love God, and our friend in God, and our enemy for God." But 
how can the selfish man return, or how have this love to the 
One? How love the One in the beauties and glories of creation, 
since he thinks not of him first, but of himself first, to get 
power and pleasure from the holy glories of creation? How love 
the One in whom the many human beings are, since he thinks 
not first of the many who are in the One, but of himself first? 
How love the One whose hand and law give labors, yea, and 
sorrows, since the selfish man thinks not first of the One whose 



124 THE EICHES OF LIFE. 

commandments the labors are, but of himself first, how he may 
get ease, how he may turn the work all to his own power or 
pleasure. How can the selfish man love the One, the God and 
Father? of whom says Seneca, " All his power is to do good," 
and " He is neither willing nor able to harm us," and " No sane 
man fears him," so all-loving and all-good is he unto all. But 
let us cast out this wretchedness, this poverty, that we may 
become rich with the riches of life! 

Here ends this long sermon in three parts. I have striven 
to set before you the vast and glorious riches of life — according 
to the psalmist's verse, " The earth is full of thy riches." I 
have tried to set forth — 

The riches of life in Creation — the joys of the senses and 
of knowledge: 

The riches of life in Mankind — the joy of love and liberty: 

The riches of life in Experience of Ourselves — the joy of 
labor and obedience. 
Truly, are not these great riches? Is not life very rich? We 
have but to take it, and we are like kings with full treasuries. 

0! let us look about us, on earth and sky, to be full of joy 
in these splendors all about us and over us! " These are but 
the varied God," " the rolling year is full of him," " the field's 
wide flush, the softening air, the mountains echoing round, 
the smiling forests," the chanting waters! Let me not be self- 
hooded, blind amid these. And let me labor, which is honor and 
glory and peace, taking theriches of life freely. And let me have 
that love which makes all things riches — 

" O let rue not walk in his splendors, 
Splendors of innocence in babes, 
Of joy, woe, pathos, in mid-life, 
And of the majesty of age — 
Blind, senseless, like a clod or stone, 
Or with my eyes prone earthward, brute-like, 
Peering for prey to feed ambition. 
But let me know the things God makes, 
And worship what he sets on high, 
let me feel the pang, the woe, 
The shame, that any other knows, 
And know the praise, the honor, glory, 
Of lowly hearts living beside me." 

These are riches of life; deeper than hell, for these riches 
have choked up hell and filled the pit thereof and covered the 
mouth and smoothed it with green turf; as deep as heaven, for 
'tis heaven they are. 



"TAKE MY YOKE." 



"Take my yoke upon you."— Matt. xi. 29. 

The beautiful passage in which these words occur is peculiar 
to the First Gospel. Scattered through the first three gospels are 
many passages which would have been lost but for their rescue 
from the stream of tradition by some one of these three 
evangelists. In many passages they all give an account of the 
same circumstances, or rehearse the same scenes, sometimes 
with many variations that we cannot make agree, sometimes 
with differences hard to explain. But they make up for these 
hard places, as I have said, by recording, ever and anon, each 
one of them, something which neither of the others offers us, 
yet bearing within itself, in its own nature, enough warrant that 
it is a true scrap of tradition from the Master. 

Such is the passage, " Come unto me all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This carries within 
its own complexion and nature internal witness, I think, that it 
was spoken by Jesus himself; and happy are we to have these 
gracious, moving and beautiful words preserved for us by this 
one evangelist. 

What is the yoke of Jesus of which he speaks, and the 
meaning of this whole passage? You know that in explaining 
the New Testament I have no other way than to strive to learn 
what the words would mean to a contemporary of the Master 
listening to him. It is very poor interpretation, false criticism, 
ill thinking, to put on the words of Jesus, or of any other Master or 
any Scripture, thoughts now current or now dear to us, simply 
because the language can be made to bear them. The only 
true, ingenuous, simple and clear-minded interpretation is gotten 



126 "TAKE MY YOKE." 

by comparing the words with the historical facts of that day, that 
thus we may take them, so much as we can, as they were under- 
stood by those who heard them. Now in the days of Jesus, 
religion had become external. No more, or little, in the Jewish 
system, was religion a feeling of the heart, an aspiration of the 
soul, but a submission of the will and of the hand. He was a 
good Jew, and performed all his religious duties, who gave him- 
self day by day to the requirements of the Jewish Law; and in 
the days of the Master those requirements had become so mul- 
tiplied by the traditions of the elders, the scribes, the teachers 
and expounders of the old Law and Prophets, that hardly was 
there any hour of the day, any moment of life, which was not 
filled with the exactions of the Jewish Law on the good Jewish 
believer, so that continually he was hedged about by ceremonies 
which he must observe, things that must be done at certain 
times and carefully refrained from at other times, washings, 
sacrifices, prayers, ceremonies of many kinds, in obedience to 
which and reverence of which lay the religion of the day. This 
had become a sad and dry burden to spiritual-minded persons, 
and Jesus plainly calls it so. He says, in the passage from 
which the text is taken, " Come unto me all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden under the exactions of this day, ye who stagger 
and hardly know how to walk upright or to bear yourselves 
from hour to hour with the burden of these ceremonies pressing 
on you, laid on you as weighty matters of conscience, so that 
you fear to turn from them, lest you break the very ordinance of 
God, — from all this come to me, and I will give you rest. In 
place of these things take my yoke upon you, and ye shall find 
rest to your souls. For my yoke is a spiritual and inward 
righteousness." You are used — we may imagine Jesus saying — 
you are used, you good Jews, to call the Law a Yoke, in explana- 
tion or expression of your obedience and submission to it; and 
indeed you have made it a yoke, heavily pressing on your necks, 
and bowing your heads to the ground. But my yoke is light, 
for it is not the bondage of outward exactions, but the freedom 
of inward life, — religion, joy, comfort, faith, not in observing 
outward rites, but in lifting the soul on high. I am meek and 
lowly, not in that I am slavish to the commands of the Law, but 
in heart, where meekness and lowliness truly dwell. This is a 



"TAKE MY YOKE." 127 

light yoke, a kind and gentle burden. Take it. Ye shall find 
rest to your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden light, because 
they are not outward and made by laws or rules, but inward and 
belonging to us by nature ; and what that by nature belongs to 
us can be heavy? Augustine compared this yoke of Jesus, this 
inward spiritual bond, to the plumage of the bird, which, he 
said, weighed but lightly, and yet was his means of soaring to 
the skies. Here we have, placed in vivid contrast, the difference 
between internal and external religion, between the yoke of the 
Law and the liberty of the spirit wherewith, said Paul, Christ 
has made us free. 

But now from this thought of Jesus I turn to another 
which these tender and gentle words suggest. The emphasis in 
this sermon shall be, " Take my yoke;" which is the same as 
saying, each one for himself, Take the yoke, your yoke, my yoke, 
each one's yoke ; that is, be willing and quick to take up our 
own inward answerableness to ourselves, to each other, and to 
God. 

The recognizing and assuming of our responsibilities is a 
large subject, so that I must limit it in this sermon very strictly. 
I shall speak of the importance of seeing and taking just one 
great particular responsibility; for I am very sure that if only 
we would feel deeply and live by the simple truth I wish to set 
forth now, the gain in human happiness and peace would be very 
great. I shall hold what I have to say strictly to our near 
relations with each other? for herein all our most dear happi- 
ness or most sad unhappiness doth lie. Either what grief or what 
great joy can outward things give us? But how great our 
power one over another to confer a joy that is heavenly, or a 
pain that seems to tear the heart out. So that I shall speak of 
one's taking his proper yoke on him in those cases where we 
meet difficulties together, I mean cases of disagreements, 
estrangements, ill-treatment one of another, misunderstandings, 
unkindnesses. These rear themselves very much in human 
life. We have not learned to bear with each other so that the 
bearing well is the most noticeable thing. That which first 
comes to light, I fear, is the need of the bearing rather than the 
success of it. 

Now I shall try to lay down a special responsibility be- 



128 "TAKE MY YOKE." 

longing to such unhappy matters, by which they may be turned 
to joys, blessings, and peacemakings. The principle is this: 
He that hath the strongest and broadest neck should take the yoke on 
him. The one that knows the most, speaking without figure, is 
answerable for doing the best thing, undertaking the best deed, 
saying the best word. You can see how far away this principle 
is from that which rules in the common manner of disagree- 
ment. This common way is to return for an injury an equal 
injury. Blow for blow, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, — this is 
called manly, strong, brave; yea, even some women call it 
womanly, though whether any will call it " das ewige weibliche," the 
eternal womanly, I know not. We say, That person slighted me 
to-day; I will watch my chance, I will set him at -naught. That 
other one has neglected a good office I did him ; well, it will be 
long before I will do him another. That man spake an ill word 
of me, which somebody, — doing a worse thing still, — told me of; 
I will pay him off, I will cast a slur on him. That woman, — I 
take an actual case, — kept close tome of purpose all the evening, 
though she knew well that the color of her dress made my com- 
plexion and apparel ugly ; I will get even with her. And so on 
through the long catalogue of human situations and trials. Now, 
it is a curious thing that the persons whom we revere the most are 
those who have put this conduct to shame; and while we carry on 
the conduct, we revere those persons for censuring it. This very 
church was builded for a two-fold purpose, yes, for a manifold pur- 
pose, as full, as wide as the needs of human nature, as deep as 
the worship of God. But one part of its purpose was to 
enshrine and study the life of a man who said that repaying bad 
with bad was barbarism. His name was Jesus. He said that 
we should return good things for bad, and he called on the 
people to observe that God does so, because he has no power 
but to do good, as his nature is, and he sends rain on the good 
and the bad alike, and causes the glory of the morning wakening 
to shine on the eyes of the just and the unjust too. 

Now the principle I wish to set forth is this, that in these 
cases of estrangement, misunderstanding, unkind or cruel acts 
(Ah, how cruel our acts to each other may be! how they do cut 
and tear! and what blows words are!), although it is the duty 
of both the persons to make peace and return good things for 



"TAKE MY YOKE." 129 

bad, yet this nearly always is more the duty of one than of the 
other. What, then, is the test for deciding on which one that 
duty lies? You will tell me, perhaps, the duty rests on the one 
most to blame. A poor principle! A sorry warrant! How 
much safety does it confer? How much help, potency, knowl- 
edge, sight is in it? How always can you decide which one is 
the more to blame? Each one of them, when you try to make 
that discovery, will insist that he is the wronged one. The 
blame, too, may belong equally, or almost equally, to both. 
And, finally, if one be much more in the wrong than the other, 
it is like to be that very one who will refuse peacemaking, 
because that is his very nature, which made him most in the 
wrong. How, then, will you deal with him? 

Now the principle that I set forth is this, as I have said, 
that the inward answerableness, the duty, the yoke of Jesus, 
rests on the one who, by nature, or by a happy education, or by 
whatever blessedness, has become the most reasonable, humane, 
and well-made person; and the strife ought to be, yea, and would 
be if we had a right self-respect and pride, which one most 
quickly should show himself to be that well-made one. I heard 
the question asked, When two persons meet on a narrow path, 
which should turn out for the other? What should we answer? 
The elder? Or the younger? The learned? Or the more igno- 
rant? The richer? The poorer? No; the answer was better 
than these — The polite one! 

That we may know how to fix this answerableness on our- 
selves, I will give you some rules. If quarrel, painfulness, dis- 
agreement, misunderstanding arise, first examine yourself thus: 
Here I am, entangled in an enmity. It is a base situation. It 
is unworthy of me — unworthy of the two of us. Now, what 
ought I to do? and then, what can I do? This depends on my 
conditions compared with my enemy. Let me then compare us 
together fairly, justly, bit by bit, advantage with advantage. It 
is plain that if I have any advantage, I onght to act with ad- 
vantage; if I be blessed with any sort of superiority, this ought 
to be shown by my acting in a better way in so far as I am 
superior. Well, am I older? Have I a better position, more 
friends, more consideration, more influence? Am I better 
educated? Have I had the heaven-given opportunity to grow 



130 "TAKE MY YOKE." 

by contact with books and with the wise? Has exparience en- 
larged more my mind, while I have been led by the kind hand 
of God in ample ways, and my enemy has lived, mayhap, in 
some narrow corner of duties, cramped therein? Am I gifted 
by nature with a calmer spirit, that I may feel the great answer- 
ableness which therein lies? Is my lot more fortunate, easy, 
happy than his? Now if one will put such questions and make 
examination of himself, a little effort will do it fairly; for a man 
is able to see well what he sets forth to see honestly. And if 
by this I conclude that I have in aught the advantage of my 
enemy, then the weight of the responsibility to make peace and 
return the good for the evil presses on me more than on him, in 
exact ' proportion to the kind and amount of that advantage. 
Sometimes this is felt, and the fruits of it are very fair. I 
knew a young man who had received some hard injuries. I 
knew them to be hard. I had seen and noted them. I said to 
him, You will return such treatment as that by something 
equally severe? But he answered me slowly (I shall never for- 
get it), — "No, I have been reflecting on the difference in our 
conditions. I am older than my enemy. I am better educated. 
I am more experienced. I have read more, thought more, trav- 
eled much more, and seen more of life. What are these advan- 
tages if they lay not special duty on me corresponding to them? 
No, I shall return no bad treatment; and if I can bring about a 
peace by kindness and forbearance, these advantages, tha + . God 
gave me, not that I made, carry with them his command to be 
first in it." 

That is the primary rule. The second rule I would lay 
down for determining our answerableness, is to reason thus: 
The person who has inj ured me has done it perhaps because he 
knows no better. Well, if I feel intensely the injury, that ought 
to mean that I do know better, which lays on me the answer- 
ableness to do the better by as much as I know the better, and 
not to copy him in the ill deed. Or he may have injured me, 
because, knowing better, he is too passionate and too feeble of 
will to rule his acts by his knoAvledge. Well, then he is to be 
pitied and helped, not hurt ; for it is as base to strike a weak 
soul as to bully a weak body. If I do know better, then I am 
under bonds to act by that knowledge, and if, knowing better, I 



"TAKE MY YOKE." 131 

be equally weak and passionate, it is but a shame to me greater 
than to him; and by this knowledge I am laid under special 
answerableness to act in accordance with it, and to be careful 
not to return my enemy's unkindness by a like deed, which I know 
to be a bad one. 

In Shelley's " Prometheus Unbound," the chained giant 
utters a most noble answer to the furies, which is like the principle 
I now advise. Jove has sent a horde of furies to torture Prome- 
theus fettered on the rock, and they are hovering over and hard 
by the sufferer, threatening him and gloating over the miseries 
which they shall inflict. They cry: 

" The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, 
Gazing on one another ; so are we. 
* * * 

So from our victim's destined agony 

The shade which is our form invests us round, — 

Else we were shapeless as our Mother Night." 

A fearful gleam of Shelley's almost awful imagination, — furies 
whose whole shape, else shapeless, was derived from their 
victim's anguish, shadowing them round by forecast! When 
Prometheus bids them do their worst, he will not yield, they 
exclaim, jeering him, that he knows not the extent of the 
anguish they can inflict and mean to work on him. " Dost 
imagine," they cry, — " Dost imagine we will but laugh into thy 
lidless eyes?" Then follows that grand answer, worthy of an 
archangel, — " I weigh not what ye do, not what ye do, but what 
ye suffer, Icing evil" Ought not we thus to think of our enemy's 
act, — not what he does, but what he surfers in that evil deed? Is 
not that right, grand, divine? For if our enemy do his deed, 
being ignorant, and knowing no better than to do evil to us, oh 
how pitiful that ignorance! the poverty of it! the wretchedness 
of it! the pain of it sometimes! And if he be malicious, then 
more wretched! Therefore either way we should weigh not 
what he does, but what he suffers, being evil. So did the gentle 
Greek, when he stood before his accusers and judges. Socrates 
said to the court, " It may be indeed that you will kill me now, 
and perhaps, as a just man always may receive that kind of hurt 
from an unjust man, to be put to death or exiled or deprived cf 
his several rights, the unjust man may imagine that he inflicts 
a great evil on the just man. I agree not with him. For 



132 "TAKE MY YOKE." 

these are but little things. But it is the unjust man who suffers 
the evil, which is his injustice." Friends, if only one of the 
persons in estrangement in most cases, would reason in this 
manner, peace would come down like rain on the mown field ; 
and if all would reason so, iniquity and war would flee this 
lovely earth. Jesus says that by his yoke we shall find rest unto 
our souls. Very precisely spoken ; not to our hands, for there is 
much to do in the world, and the very taking of this answer- 
ableness very likely will set us tasks, hard tasks, long tasks 
mayhap too, — the neck that takes the yoke must draw; but our 
soul's rest, a great quiet, peace, calm, making us know 

" amid the city's jar 
That there abides a peace divine 
Man did not make and cannot mar." 

But perhaps you will say to me, This advice is altogether 
too ideal to be of any use in the world, too far above human 
possibilities. But I answer you, Humanity has climbed to it, 
and it is the first duty of a man to believe he can do what has 
been done. Jesus climbed to it. Going to the cross, he looked 
on the people, some of them in tears, and said, " Daughters of 
Jerusalem, weep not for me." Like the tranquil Socrates, he was 
far beyond their pity; like the Titan on the rock, he needed not 
the very pity of Jove. " Weep not for me," saith he, " weep 
for yourselves and for your children;" am! afterwards, looking 
down on that raving and reviling mob, he said, " Father, forgive 
them, because they know not what they do;" but I know, would 
he say, — therefore the yoke is on me to bear with them, with 
prayer. So did the meek Huss, at Constance, when he bore 
all that was put on him, and answered only that he had no 
other arms than his endurance, " for," said he, "this alone is 
the priest's weapons." But in that sense we all are ordained 
priests of the Almighty. 

Again 1 answer, if you tell me that all this is too high — I 
answer that we are able to make a kind of moral ancestry or 
lineage for our own souls, to which the more we be true the 
more can we be true, as it grows older and nobler. It is one of 
the great virtues of having done something noble, some grand 
deed, or so having forgotten ourselves that, as always we can 
when we forget ourselves, we have taken a flight which we 



"TAKE MY YOKE." 133 

thought past all our flying, to some height of doing or feeling, — 
it is one of the uses of such a deed that afterwards we have a 
banner or scutcheon ; and great shame it is if we blot the azure 
by falling or failing. A noble behaviour becomes like illustrious 
forefathers. We must be worthy of our ancestry, or, as it were, 
of that forefather deed of ours, which sets us the pattern of life. 
Thus comes the power of noble traditions in a family or a 
country, since to have been noble is a firm ground always, and 
a great source of strength, for continuing to be noble — a banner 
of lineage or tradition set aloft for us forever, under which we 
can do mightier battle. Hence 'tis not impossible, idle nor vain 
to lay on us this high rule of life which I have given, this 
heavenly \oke; for every lofty bearing of it becomes motive for 
the next one, — yea, as if into our good deeds the breath of life 
were breathed and they took shape as angels who stretch hands 
to us, helping by their invitation. George Elliot says the like: 
" Our lives make a moral tradition for our individual selves, as 
the life of mankind at large mikes a moral tradition for the race, 
and to have once acted greatly seems to be a reason why we 
should always be noble." 

• But once more I answer, We must set up the ideal before 
us. Do you say I have been laying down a law tw ideal? I 
answer, What will you lift before you but the ideal? Will you 
set aught before your eyes which you know not to be ideal? 
How does the painter draw, design and execute? To arrive at 
the exact level of what he beholds before him, — the assemblage 
of colors just as they are, and all shapes intermingled? No, 
but to draw forth from them the ideal, so that its effect on the 
beholder may be as it were to wake a dream of God. So let us 
aim at divine beauty in life, and set naught low r er before us, and 
know it is divine, and for that very reason believe we are made 
for it, and then strive, and do the best we can, and strive again. 
And God help us all! 



PAUL'S THEEE POINTS. 



I am to speak of Paul's three great points of belief and 
trust. Whenever any man accomplishes such a great work as 
Paul did, with such devotion, endurance, suffering, steadfast- 
ness, we may be sure he is under the power of some grand 
ruling ideas. For such things come not merely of an emotion; 
the waters are stirred by the angel of a thought. Paul lived 
daily with three dominant faiths filling his mind, which ruled 
him, inspired him, gave him force and devotion, and strength- 
ened him to bear all his labors and sufferings by sea and land. 
These three beliefs were, first, that Christ was the Messiah, and 
was described and set forth in the Old Testament as the ex- 
pected one of the Jews, — I mean that Jesus of Nazareth was 
the predicted King of Israel. This was one of the ruling and 
inspiring faiths of the great Paul. The second was that Christ 
would return to the earth soon, in a second coming or advent, to 
enter on his kingdom, since he had not taken it during his 
earthly appearance. Paul's third great belief was that Chris- 
tianity, — which in Paul's mind was the acceptance of Christ as 
the Messiah, with all its consequences, — was not for the Jews 
only, but for mankind. These were Paul's three great points, 
which were to him the animating powers of all his enterprises, 
his prayers and his hopes. 

Now these three thoughts of Paul contain two errors and 
one truth. These I will try to explain in the order of the 
points. 

The first point, as I have said, was that Jesus was the 
Messiah, and was described in the Scriptures. The Scriptures 
herein, of course, mean the Old Testament Scriptures, for the 



136 PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 

New Testament was not in existence. Paul constantly was 
enforcing this view, this animating faith of his. It appears 
continually in his writings. It looks forth, never ceasing, from 
the narratives of the Book of Acts; as, in the thirteenth chapter 
it is narrated that Paul at Antioch went into the synagogue, 
and when the readings were ended, the master of the synagogue 
said to him: " If thou hast anything to speak to the people, say 
on," and Paul, then rising, preached Jesus to them as the Mes- 
siah, and expounded from Moses and the Prophets that Jesus 
was the Messiah predicted in the Scriptures. This made a 
great stir in the town; but the next Sabbath day he did the same 
thing; whereupon many of the Jews banded together and com- 
plained of him, and drove him away from the city. Likewise 
at Thessalonica, as we read in the seventeenth chapter, he 
preached in the synagogue for three weeks ; but at the end of 
this time the chief Jews would bear it no more, but made great 
uproar around the house of Jason; and Paul having escaped, 
they seized Jason himself and carried him before the Roman 
governor of the city, charging him with having harbored sedi- 
tious men who preached rebellion against Caesar. We read in 
the twenty-eighth chapter of Acts that, having come in person 
to Rome, Paul appointed a day when all the Jews of the city 
should gather in his house, or at least the chief rabbins and 
teachers among them; and they came, and Paul sat all day long, 
according to the story, expounding to them from Moses and the 
Prophets that Jesus surely was the one predicted, the Messiah 
who was to be received. 

Now Paul was in error in this first point; and his error 
was twofold. First, Jesus did not conform to the Jewish ex- 
pectation and dream of a Messiah. He was lowly, humble in 
his extraction, from a despised little town of a despised prov- 
ince, with no name, no ancestry, no magnificence. But the 
great Jewish king was to come with pomp and glory, to be of 
the lineage of David, and sit on a throne, retrieving the ancient 
magnificence of the Hebrews. Jesus came poor, without re- 
sources, having not where to lay his head, a wanderer on the 
earth, often driven about by furious crowds, his poor disciples 
helping as well as they could to minister to his needs. But the 
great prince who was to come was to be rich and powerful, full 



PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 137 

of royal magnificence, of great wealth and resources, and go 
out to war against the Komans. Jesus also never showed any 
very national or clannish spirit. He loved the Samaritans as 
well as the Jews. He told his countrymen that to enter into the 
kingdom turned not on being of Jewish blood, but on living in 
a manner worthy of the kingdom; and that if so they did not, 
then they would be shut out, and many would come from the 
east and the west, the north and south, and sit down with 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the places left vacant by the 
unworthy children of the covenant. The truth is that the old 
Scriptures give no predictions of Jesus. They describe him 
nowhere. It was a false method of interpretation that enabled 
Paul to find any prediction of Jesus in these old sacred 
writings. This method of interpretation still survives. It is 
easy for anyone to find anything he will in any writing which 
he may interpret as he will, by his own canons. For there is 
but one sound interpretation, and one honest critical question, 
which is, What did the writings mean to a contemporary who 
heard them or read them? 'Tis certain that the Hebrews who 
heard Isaiah's songs or prophesyings understood no reference to 
Jesus of Nazareth, no, nor to anyone 500 years forward. 

But here now I come to a great point. If Jesus was so 
contrary to all the Jewish hopes and ideas, and such a mortifi- 
cation to the pride of them, how and why was he accepted by 
the Apostles, and by Paul, the greatest genius among them, 
with such implicit loyal faith and love? Consider how he 
shocked all their prejudices; and they never were a match for 
their prejudices. To the end I doubt not Jesus was a lonely 
man, because he was not understood even by his own disciples. 
When he was in the very shadow of the cross, they were dis- 
puting with each other who should have the pre-eminence in his 
kingdom, to be his prime minister when he should come into his 
power. The answer to the question, How was it that they 
accepted him in spite of these great mortifications, is this, — His 
moral and spiritual impression was so unspeakable! To the 
very end the disciples were looking for a grand manifestation 
from him; and still he disappointed them; and still they be- 
lieved, because of his mighty spiritual force. 

This, then, was the first mode of Paul's error as to the alleged 



138 PAUL'S THEEE POINTS. 

prediction of Jesus in the Old Scriptures. But his error in this 
matter was still a deeper one, for it lay in his going to the writ- 
ten word at all. Friends and brethren, why struggle with 
anguish of thought and weariness of soul over ancient writings 
of prophets, singers and law-givers, until they be twisted or 
stretched or hammered into the model of this present time? 
Oh how much better to read them as they were, the inspiration 
of their own eras, living and throbbing with its sorts of feelings 
and worships and prayers! But not rules nor bonds for us in 
this era. Why decipher writings, though they be sacred? Why 
weave patterns of thought from songs, though the songs be 
holy? Why turn back the eyes over roads long traversed and 
well trodden, though beaten pathetically they be with the feet of 
men long gone, and wondrous and tender with sights and asso- 
ciations, — why? I say, — when before us, and at our feet, lies 
also the same ancient way, — that portion which we are to 
tread for ourselves, — and a long way too, which perforce we 
must go in and cannot stay if we would! Tell me, shall we 
not go in it the better, the more safely and gladly, yea, and with 
songs, yea, and with prophesy on our lips, shall we not? — if our 
eyes be set forward like our feet, and about our feet where now 
they tread, that we may see and rejoice in the present glory, the 
providence, the presence of God! Here let me take my stand; 
for if God be not here now, I must tell you he was never any- 
where; and if he fail me in my need, though I be the humblest 
and most unworthy and most struggling, yea, and most sinful, 
then did he never come to anyone though he were the holiest 
and the greatest. Nay, holy lips have said that there is more 
joy among the angels over one sinner that repenteth, than over 
ninety and nine just persons made perfect; and if there be joy 
in the dwelling of God over the victor}?, then is he present help 
for the struggle. Here I must stand; and I must say the great 
Paul was still in the bonds of the letter, from which I do believe 
with all my soul that, if now he were here, he would be free. And 
if happily I be free from it, 'tis no triumph nor monument of 
mine, to be graved with my name, nor of any other, to be graved 
with his name; but a temple of God not made with hands, to be 
filled with songs of praise. Yes, here I stand, and to that tem- 
ple I must come, and I must enter, not boldly, and yet with no 



PAUL'S THEEE POINTS. 139 

dread. What evil ever can happen to me if I seek the good? Proph- 
ets, law givers, psalmists and singers, saints and holy men of 
old, who lived on Carmel, filled the wilderness with prayer, 
preached in Jerusalem, and hurled the holts of the word of the 
Lord at treacheries and wrongs, I read you, I reverence you, I 
sit at your feet; but ye make not my religion, no, but my re- 
ligion, and every man's, as it was in the beginning, now is and 
ever shall be, made you ; and I shall not know you, and your 
words will be but stammering oracles or wild syllables if first 
I know not for myself the same heart of religion which is in 
you. Herein again doth the Master, the Nazarene, tower far 
above his great disciple, as Renan has written truly: " To ap- 
pear for a moment, to reflect a soft and profound refulgence, to 
die very young, is the life of a god. To struggle, dispute, and 
conquer, is the life of a man. After having been for three cen- 
turies, thanks to orthodox Protestanism, the Christian teacher 
par excellence, Paul sees in our day his reign drawing to a close. 
Jesus, on the contrary, lives more than ever. It is no longer 
the Epistle to the Romans which is the epitome of Christianity — 
it is the sermon on the Mount. * * * What makes Christian- 
ity live, is the little that we know of the word and person of 
Jesus. " This is because Jesus went first to the First; for God 
is first, and none can go to him second or through any other 
to learn what Jesus learned. He laid no* the Old Scriptures 
on his head above him, as if piling them book on book therewith 
to be enlightened, till at last he was freighted with the heavy 
burden and went staggering over the earth; no, but he set the 
Scriptures, book on book, under his feet and climbed them, till 
standing on them, lifted far on their up-piled holiness, he could 
look with his eyes over the earth, see it, know it, and in it know 
the life of God. To his own soul he went, like as into a Holy 
of Holies. How often he could go therein, into the very inner 
place, who can tell? That great entrance was rare perhaps, as 
it was in the old ceremonial. Only once a year could the priest 
enter that sacred place. I know not whether it were so often 
as once a year, or but few times in thirty years, that the devout 
soul of Jesus found its way to the depths of itself. But it came 
out from that presence filled with divinity. Then he preached, 
not from the book, but from himself, and said that the pure in 



140 PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 

heart should see God. What a certainty of nature is this! What 
fact! What assurance! Fathers and mothers, who together have- 
looked on your children with wonder, with awe and love, all un- 
speakable, who each hath beheld himself in offspring and won- 
dered much, and each hath beheld the other and wondered more, 
with love, and both of the wonderments full of religious fear, — 
tell me, do ye need writings wherewith to approach your chil- 
dren, or must one child give to another a writing that he may 
come to you? When were ye ever so far off that only through 
a verse, a scrip, a hope or thought or dream written down, your 
child could come to you? When were ye ever so much farther 
off that some humble one of your children could come to you 
only by a parchment from the hand of a greater one? Nay, 
when did they not fly to you all together, and directly with no 
intervention, yes, and the humblest, the slowest, the weakest 
first, the stronger making way for them that the more they might 
nestle in the father's arms or at the mother's heart, which were 
theirs by origin, by nature, by love and by their faith? Sit ye 
then thus, with your children close at your side and in your arms 
sheltered, and look ye up into the sky. There is the Infinite 
that bends over you, as the sky reaches down all around to the 
horizon, yea, and to our eyes rests on the earth and from its 
bright rim rears up the infinite arch of our abode. Stars play 
therein, and worlds without number, like children for very joy 
around him loud shouting and singing. Then comethtoo a 
hush, which is Law, Love, Order, Perfection. Think of this ; 
then turn thine eyes to man. As thou hast looked up to heaven, 
so now look down into the human heart which is spread like a 
sea underneath, wherein the stars shape themselves again if the 
waters be still, or are broken if the water strive in storms. What 
is the human heart? Who dare say he hath sounded it? Who 
dare describe it? Who dare tell what it is? Who hath meas- 
ured around it? Who knoweth the power of its mysteries of 
love, of will, of joy and pain? Who hath written how these 
wrestle together and tear each other, or what peace lieth under- 
neath them, to which the soul must go down at last, and there 
find the deep that calleth unto deep, — the deep of the earth, or 
of the child here placed, calling unto the deep of the heavens, or 
of the Father who is the heavens! Think of this, and then tell 



PAUL'S THKEE POINTS. 141 

me whether one of these hearts, though it be the struggling, 
tempted, erring, must have writings from another, — though it 
be calm and holy, before it may go straight and alone to the In- 
finite, the All-Holy, the Father? Must there be parchments 
from elders, prophets and sweet singers, before one soul shall 
know how to speak a prayer, or to pray what it can not speak? 
No. Whence is your love, ye fathers and mothers, who stretch 
out your arms and clasp closest the weakest, the most needy, 
the most frightened one of your children, — whence cometh that 
in you, but from God, who in like manner bendeth forward and 
hath naught between you and him! 

" My child is lying on my knees ; 

The signs of heaven she reads ; 
My face is all the heaven she sees, 

Is all the heaven she needs. 

I also am a child, and I 

Arn ignorant and weak ; 
I gaze upon the starry sky, 

And then I must not speak : 

For all behind the starry sky, 

Behind the world so broad, 
Behind men's hearts and souls, doth lie 

The Infinite of God. 

Lo ! Lord, I sit in thy wide space, 

My child upon my knee ; 
She looketh up unto my face, 

And I look up to thee. " 



I come now to Paul's second point. The second great ar- 
ticle of that faith of his which gave him such strength and devo- 
tion, was his belief in what is called the second coming, or second 
advent of Christ, The idea of a suffering and dying Messiah 
was the most fearful shock that the mind of a Jew could have 
received. And yet the moral and spiritual impression of Jesus 
triumphed over that too. Instead of seeing their great Master 
elevated, as they believed he would be, by some great popular 



142 PAUL'S THKEE POINTS. 

tumult, into a great reigning prince, re-establishing the kiDgdom 
in its ancient power and reigning in great glory, they saw him 
cut off by the most ignominious and painful death, on a Roman 
scaffold; and yet, I say, such had been his spiritual impression 
on them, that after a little, when the first shock and depres- 
sion were over, and they came together again, they said, " Never- 
theless, he was the Messiah ! " And as they could not have a 
dead Christ, they dreamed a speedy second coming, and believed 
it implicitly. Paul's letters are full of it. " The time is short, " 
he said, " the fashion of this world is passing away. " In his 
letters to the Corinthians he says: 

"Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we 
shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at 
the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."* 

And, again, to the Romans: 

"Knowing the time, that now it is high time for you to 
awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when 
we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: 
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put 
on the armor of light."f 

To the Thessalonians Paul writes: 

" For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we 
that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in 
no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord him- 
self shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of 
the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. Then we that are alive, that are left, 
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the 
Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Where- 
fore, comfort one another with these words. "J Paul argues that 
those who had died should be at no disadvantage by dying, be- 
cause the Lord himself, he says, shall descend from heaven with 
an army and great glory, and first he will awake the faithful 
from their grave-bed, and then, all together, those that have 
been dead and those that still are living, shall be caught up to 
meet the Lord and his armies of angels in the air. 

This was Paul's vivid dream. I doubt not at all that never 

*1 Cor. 15. fRom, 13. %1 Thess. 4. 



PAUL'S THREE POLNTS. 143 

he went to sleep at night but he thought that, before the morn- 
ing dawned by the natural light, might come the morning of the 
kingdom, with its trumpet tones and glory of angels in the sky. 

But Paul was in error in this dream. The fact followed 
not his vision. No splendid advent like to what he conceived 
took place in the sky; no trumpet sounded, no angels gathered, 
no spirits descended, no legions of spirits armed themselves, no 
banners waved nor throne was set, no heralds called to judg- 
ment; nor were the nations gathered, nor saints came with re- 
joicing nor the guilty with trembling; but all has been quiet to 
this hour — the sentinel stars aloft, the commanding sun in front 
of them, the changeable moon at peace, the obedient tides fol- 
lowing; and all has been quiet to this day, to this day peace, 
order and quiet. Truly the great Apostle saw but a little way ; 
nay, no farther than to the curtain of his own fancies, which 
hung heavy over his eyes ; so that he looked not out of the 
window to see the universe moving in its divinity of order. 

Yet this mistake of Paul is not a mere vain dream, a nec- 
romantic thought, a magical vision. It has a truth in it, name- 
ly, that we are safe whatever take place; yea, even if such 
trumpets sound in the sky, such legions descend, such tumults 
and convulsions upheave, and such a throne issue from them as 
the Apostle dreamed, still we are safe; for what could harm us? 
And in truth we know not what may happen to this little ball 
that now so merrily trundles our daily fortunes. This earth was 
once, so it seems written in the sky, a ball of fire; yes, and not 
even this, but a fiery vapor or mist, spreading we know not where 
in the heavens. And how this mist came we know not. What 
if it were the burning sprinkle through space, as some astronom- 
ers say, of two cold globes somewhere rushing together in an 
embrace that became fire! If thus the earth were, so it may be 
again. Who knows of it, either whence it came or wither it 
goes, or now how far it is on its way to the goal? This is one 
of the countless multitudes of things, like sands on the sea- 
shore, which we know not nor can know; which, notwithstand- 
ing, all together are not of the grandeur, splendor and joyfulness 
of some of the few things that we do know. For to know that in 
every hap the love of God reigns, and that naught can harm us 
wherein our ruling principle is kept pure — this is the knowledge 



144 PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 

which is the gate called Beautiful to the sheltered places of the 
City of Peace. So did the Apostle think, for in another place 
in the Scriptures, in the book called the Second Letter of Peter, 
there is a notable description of the last day of the present 
world and of the new coming of the Messiah which Paul was so 
wrapped in. Here follows the passage: 

''But, beloved, forget not this one thing, that one day is with 
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men 
count slackness; but is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heav- 
ens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall 
be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that 
are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus 
all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all 
holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the 
coming of the day of God, by reasou of which the heavens be- 
ing on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat? But, according to his promise, we look for new 
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

Like to this, wherein indeed the old poet had the Apostle's 
description in mind, is a noble psean from a Provencal poet, 
translated by our poet, Bryant: 

" All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, 

Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. 

The forms of men shall be as they had never been ; 

The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green ; 

The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song, 

And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long. 

The kine of the pasture shall feed the dart that kills, 

And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills. 

The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox, 

The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks, 

And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie ; 

And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die. 

And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more, 

And they shall bow to death who ruled from shore to shore ; 

And the great glob.3 itself, so the holy writings tell, 

With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell, 

Shall melt with fervent heat— they shall all pass away, 

Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye." 



PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 145 

I come now to Paul's third point of faith. And I do be- 
lieve this inspired him more greatly than the other two. It was 
what I may call his universalism. You know there arose a great 
quarrel in the first church. It was between the Jew Christians 
and the Gentile Christians. The Jew Christians said: "You 
Gentiles, before you can be Christians, first must submit to the 
Jewish law and ceremonies; for Christ came to the Jews; there- 
fore you must come first under the Jewish rites and law; and 
then you can become a Christian." Paul said: "No! these are 
'beggarly elements.' I will have none of them. Come in freely, 
without any foreign rites, ceremonies and obligations, ye Gen- 
tiles." The Jew believers thought Christianity a thing inside of 
Judaism; Paul made it a movement, pressing out of Judaism to 
the whole world. His letters are full of this thought, and all 
his life was devoted to it. He wandered up and down the face 
of the earth to preach it, and to clasp the Gentiles to his soul. 

In his letter to the Romans the Apostle says that God will 
render to every man according to his works ; that they will find 
life and honor who by patience and well-doing seek for it, and 
that on every soul that worketh evil shall come sorrow and 
pain, not more to the Jew than to the Greek; and glory and 
honor and peace to every man that worketh good, as much to the 
Greek as to the Jew; for " there is no respect of persons with 
God." For, says the Apostle, "Not the hearers of a law are just 
before God, but the doers of a law shall be justified. For when 
the Gentiles, which have no law, do by nature the things of the 
law, these having no law, are a law unto themselves; in that 
they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their con- 
science bearing witness therewith and their thoughts accusing 
or else excusing them one with another, in the day when God 
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my 
my gospel."* Who art thou? exclaims the Apostle, and what 
manner of man art thou? If thou art a Jew and gloriest in 
the law, and art instructed out of the law, and yet so dost 
dishonor the law by thy evil deeds that even the Gentiles pro- 
fane the holy name because of thee, I tell thee that thy be- 
ing a Jew and keeping the ceremonies is well if thou do the law; 
but if thou transgress, thy ceremonies and sacrifices are naught, 

*Rom. 2, 



146 PAUL'S THBEE POINTS. 

and the blood of Abraham is not in thee. And if one who is 
not a Jew and knows nothing of the temple rites, nor ever of- 
fered sacrifices, nor has submitted to ceremonies, does good 
works, shall not his Gentile blood be counted to him the same 
as Jew blood? Yea, though an alien, he shall be the same as 
a child of the chosen household. And if he, though not of the 
covenant, of the blood of Abraham, fulfill the law, I tell thee 
he shall judge thea who art Abraham's issue and doest evil. 
"For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that cir- 
cumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew which 
is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the 
spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." 
In an another letter, that to the Galatians, the Apostle as- 
sures them eloquently, that they are no longer under a tutor, 
nor are to be driven this way and that by any who may seek to 
pass them under the yoke of the law before they can be Chris- 
tians. For ye are all sons, he says, and as many of you as 
have entered into the fold of Christ did thereupon put on Christ, 
so that no longer there can be Jew, nor Greek, nor bond, nor 
free, nor male, nor female, nor any differences whereby men are 
parted; but all are one in the fold of Christ. And if then ye be- 
long to him, cries the Apostle, what is this but to be the same 
as the very seed of Abraham and heirs of the promise that was 
given him. And again in the 8th chapter of the Letter to the 
Komans, a very noble and great chapter, the Apostle tells them 
that as many as are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God; 
and that they must not be drawn into any bondage, to be fearful 
about ceremonies, or sacrifices, or names, or any outward things, 
but receive the spirit of adoption; for their very souls bear 
witness within them, and the voice of God within their souls, 
that they are the children of him. And if children, then heirs, 
as much as his Hebrew children, yes, and joint heirs with the 
Messiah himself, if they be willing to suffer with him, that with 
him also they may be glorified. If then thus ye Gentiles are 
called and God hath chosen you, as in truth he hath done from 
the beginning, and doth ordain you to be called in his own time, 
even as also he called the Jews — if then thus God is for you, 
who can be against you? Who can lay anything to your charge 
before him whereby to turn you away? Nay, hath not his son, 



PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 147 

even Jesus the Christ, died, and now, being raised and 
ascended, rnaketh intercession? "Who shall separate us 
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, 
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
sword? as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the 
day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in 
all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that 
loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord."* 

Wherefore, cries the Apostle, in still another letter, to the 
Ephesians— Wherefore you Gentiles that once seemed afar off, 
now are made nigh, for Christ hath broken the middle wall of 
the partition and abolished the old enmity, even by his own 
flesh, having brought the Jew and the Gentile together into one 
body through the cross, and by his cross slain the enmity. And 
he preached peace to you that aTe far off as much as peace to 
them that were nigh, for both have access in one spirit to the 
same Father. So I tell you ye are not mere strangers and so- 
journers, but fellow-citizens, and of the household of God. And 
ye are made all together, Jew and Gentile, into a holy temple in 
the Lord, builded together for a habitation for God. 

In writing to the Galatians he warns them with great feel- 
ing that he fears they are losing the life of the spirit and being 
brought to sacrifices, ceremonies and rules, under the Jewish 
law. Away with such things! he cries to them; they were fit 
only for your time of bondage, when as yet ye were outside and 
knew not your sonship. But now that ye have come to know, 
"how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto 
ye desire to be in bondage over again? Ye observe days, and 
months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by 
any means I have bestowed upon you labor in vain."f 

Here was Paul's great truth. Oh, sometimes how must the 
most timid soul wish there were a Paul now to say these words 
to us, to our faithless, fearful churches, that have no confidence 
in truth, but must hedge round their thoughts by creeds and ex- 

*Bom. 8. tGal. 4. 



148 PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 

elusions! Herein lay no error. Paul might err in explaining 
written texts, and reason falsely from them, as he did, against 
the laws of language and history; he might err in his dreams 
of blazing splendors at the Lord's coming in the sky; but in his 
all-embracing humanity and fellowship he builded on a rock. 
This wide and great doctrine of Paul, that the great good news 
of Jesus' life and devotion was not for the Jews only, but for the 
world, to be preached to the Gentiles — this, I say, because it was 
so great and wondrous a proclamation, brought him into great 
perils, yes, and sufferings of body continually during his years 
of toilsome journeys to preach his great Gospel. Wherever he 
went he preached, even in the synagogues, that Christianity was 
not a new sect of Jews, nor for Jews alone, no, but a wide re- 
ligion, and for all mankind. But when he said such things, 
then the Jews set upon him, drove him from their synagogues 
time and again, reviled him, spumed him, beat him and stoned 
him, even pursuing him out on the highways between city and 
city, and leaving him for dead by the roadside. Once when he 
was in Jerusalem, some Jews of Asia Minor who happened to be 
there, recognized him as the troublesome, heretical, and seditious 
preacher who had made light of the laws and in their very syn- 
agogues opened his arms to the Gentiles. Whereat they stirred 
up the people and made a great outcry, shouting, Help, men of 
Israel! This is the man whom we found in our cities teaching 
against the law! And we read that ''all the city was moved, and 
the people ran together, and they laid hold on Paul and dragged 
him out of the temple. And forthwith the doors were shut. 
And as they were seeking to kill him, tidings came up to the 
chief captain of the band that all Jerusalem was in confusion. 
And immediately he took soldiers and centurians, and ran down 
upon them. And when they saw the chief captain and soldiers, 
they left off beating Paul. Then the chief captain came near 
and laid hold on him, and commanded him to be bound with two 
chains, and inquired who he was and what he had done. And 
some shouted one thing, some another, among the crowd; and 
when he could not know the certainty for the uproar, he com- 
manded him to be brought into the castle. And when he came 
upon the stairs, so it was that he was borne of tne 
soldiers for the violence of the crowd. For the multitude 



PAUL'S THEEE POINTS. 149 

of the people followed after, crying, Away with him."* 
But when Paul thus was carried by the soldiers up the stairs 
he begged leave of the officer to speak, and so stand- 
ing on the stairs beckoned with his hand and began to 
speak, not in Greek, but in Hebrew, the holy and an- 
cient tongue, and the angry mob stood silent to listen. "Where- 
upon Paul told them who he was and where born, and how at the 
feet of their rabbins he had been instructed strictly in the law, 
and that he was very zealous and had followed the new com- 
pany of Christians with fire and sword. Then he narrated to 
them what had happened to him on the road to Damascus, and 
the blindness wherewith he was struck, and the manner in which 
he was healed of it; and then, at last, he spoke out bravely that 
the word of the Lord came to him, saying, " Depart, for I will 
send thee forth from hence unto the Gentiles." And, says the 
Scripture, they gave him audience unto this word, but then when 
he spake of going to the Gentiles, they shouted with a great out- 
cry, " Away with such a fellow from the earth! It is not fit that 
he should live! " And they shouted and roared and threw their 
garments off, and cast dust into the air. Paul, in truth, had 
been a notable Jew, as he had told the people, and had gone 
raging up and down the land, beating the Christians and throw- 
ing them into prison, and had stood consenting to the death of 
Stephen ; but when at last he believed, and embraced the new 
Gospel, then it was not as a Jew taking the new evangel into his 
old narrowness, as if he patched an old garment with new cloth, 
or put new wine into old goat-skins. No, but as a new man he 
took his new faith, not as a Jew, but as a man j and hence not 
for the Jews but for all men he opened his arms, to gather them 
all in, because God had made of one blood all the nations of the 
world, to walk on the face of the earth, and was not far from 
any one of them. Paul rescued his glorious Master from the 
hard fate of phrophets, which is that they soon become them- 
selves tyrants like unto those they overthrow. For soon they 
that speak out of their own spirit, as Jesus did, and call on all 
men to do the same and to learn where they learned, which is in 
the holy quiet of then own souls, — soon these, I say, are set 
aloft by their disciples and crowns put on them that they may 
*Acts. 21. 



150 PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 

be adored with submission ; and soon then they become law- 
givers instead of inspirers, and their disciples grow to a stern 
priesthood who put other men to fire and sword in their 
names. How did Luther wrestle with his followers that they 
should do even as he had done, and warned them that they were 
not to call themselves after him! Yet so, notwithstanding, 
would they do, and did; and now they are hardened into a sect 
which needs another Luther to overthrow the first and purge 
his work of tyranny. Paul stood like a bulwark for a time, yes, 
like a great wall that no thunders could shake and no lightnings 
of men's hatred shatter, in front of his Master, to shield him 
from the hard fate of being no more than the leader of another 
Jewish sect. When at last Paul was gone, and the apostles 
were gone, and all slept that knew the Master, the Jews scat- 
tered, their city sacked and burned, and their law a by-word and 
reproach, then, alas, the gospel of Jesus did become a tyranny; 
yes, and the very epistles of Paul a like tyranny, which helped 
to set the stones of the walls of the church to keep out Jews and 
all heretics and set bound again to the love of God. But the 
spirit of Paul wrestles with this bondage of the letter, as of old 
he did; and again he shall triumph, as of old he did; and again 
the universal truth and the human fellowship which was in 
him shall rescue the Master from sects and clans, from creeds, 
churches, sectaries, and all bondage of the letter, as of old it 
did; and once more man shall know that neither principal- 
ities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor 
height nor depth nor any other creature shall seperate man 
from the love of God, nor shall part men from one another, 
for that they are of one family in that love. What impiety 
greater than to bound the grace and love of God? Oh! how 
unspeakably vain it seems, how hard to conceive it, that any 
will think to bound the grace of God, shutting it profanely 
into one fold with gates of men's devices, or sealing it with one 
name or creed or church or method; as if men (I say it reverent- 
ly) would label God" with their titles, or mark the wolves and 
jackals of their bitter passions with the name of the Great Shep- 
herd. 



PAUL'S THREE POINTS. 151 

Thus I have tried to set forth, though by necessity briefly, 
these points of Paul, two errors and one truth. They all survive. 
Still the people are going to the writings, to the parchments, 
to the letter, for arguments, in all the churches. I know 
there are bursts and throbs of coming freedom, the freedom of 
the spirit within us, — God be thanked! And yet, still there 
are exclusions, hatreds, persecutions; and men goto the parch- 
ments for their religion. Still, also, many are looking for the 
second coming, and their sad hearts are spelling it out from 
the figures in Daniel. But, too, there are many successors to 
Paul, and many through the ages, never so many as now, striving 
to break down the partition walls, and bring men to one fold — 
howsoever they differ in forms, no matter — by the unity of the 
spirit. It is remarkable that the two errors are warring with 
the one truth, for it is the argument from the letter, from the 
scriptures, and the Messiah-dream of a miraculous Lord and 
King, that seperate men. 

The two errors shall be done away, the truth shall stay and 
grow. Gradually these grand scriptures, this glorious great 
Bible, so misused, and yet able to be so valuable and precious 
to us, shall cease to rule over man's reason, and then it will be 
the friend of his soul. Gradually the holy Nazarene will cease 
to be a Lord expected again with blare of trumpets and armed 
angels in the sky; and then he will be the wayfaring friend and 
teacher of men, a " quickening spirit." And the truth of the 
great heart of Paul, the all-embracing humanity, the love, that 
shall prevail; and the earth will become a new Eden, men 
will walk new-made in the garden, nor will fear each other, nor 
any creature fear them, nor ravage any more. "The wolf also 
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid; and the calf and the young lion and thefatling together; 
and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear 
shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the 
lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall 
play at the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall pnt his 
hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in 
all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge 
of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."* 

*Isaih ix. 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 



I have a difficult subject this morning; not difficult in itself, 
but to treat in such language and manner I fear as may recom- 
mend it to you. I have tried faithfully to keep in mind that I 
shall speak to those who at present are not acquainted with the 
technical language of the schools. Particularly I have tried to 
regard the younger portion of the congregation. I hope I may 
not fail altogether in bringing the subject to their minds and 
hearts. I once preached to a congregation where they had the 
habit of stopping the minister to ask questions whenever they 
wished. A somewhat dangerous privilege; yet not too danger- 
ous, I think, if only we could escape from vanity and self- 
consciousness — that is to say, if we could ask questions born of 
the humility, and not of the arrogance, of thought. But, 
though this custom obtains not here, I should be willing enough 
to have it, especially in such a subject as this, wherein I fear that 
without knowing it I may fall short of that plainness which 
certainly I aim at. 

"What I have to say I will bring before you by a story, or 
allegory. There was a shepherd, sitting in the midst of his 
florks, in a hilly and barren country. Looking about him, he 
asked himself where were the signs of the king? What proof 
have I, quoth he, or what signs that there is a king reigning in 
this country? Him I never see. His messengers never reach 
me. And, in truth, I must say this is but a stony and poor 
piece of ground for the king to leave as it is, if, indeed, he be 
reigning and in power. Now, while the shepherd was talking 
thus to himself, reasoning, behold, he saw coming in the distance 



154 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

some swift runners; and one after another, at slight intervals, 
they came dashing past him, plainly couriers bent on some 
urgent command. Whereupon, the shepherd reasoned again 
thus: Who be these fast runners that I see speeding past me in 
this manner? Surely these must be of great moment and 
pressed by business of great import, they hurry so much, and 
seem in so great earnestness. Now, perhaps, quoth the shep- 
herd, they come from the king. Yes, that is the only explana- 
tion. They are the couriers speeding from the king on some 
great errand. Whereupon, the simple heart of the man was 
satisfied, and he rested very content in this proof that there 
was a king. But soon, as he looked on the messengers as they 
came past, he began to notice that many of them were very 
shabbily clad; indeed, much travel- worn and stained with their 
journey. So he began to reason again that surely they could 
not come from the king, being so ill-clad and so ill-kept. For 
if from a great monarch they came, they would be clothed in a 
manner equal to their office, reflecting glory on their Lord. So 
the shepherd fell again into his discontent, and wondered 
whether there was a king after all. But noticing again the 
couriers as they ran, he saw them doing what at first had escaped 
his notice, because no one had done it quite before his eyes, 
or just in front of him; he noticed, I say, that as they ran 
they appeared to be taking off their journey-stained clothing, 
tearing away from them their poor garments torn and ragged, and 
putting on others that they seemed to be carrying with them; 
yea, even in some strange way making and preparing them as 
they ran. As they put on these new garments, they became, 
indeed, rich and comely in their bearing, in appearance worthy 
of a great monarch. Thereupon, the shepherd fell to reasoning 
again, and said: If belike these messengers come not from a 
king, since they come so ill-dressed and so shabby, yet they 
are going to a king, for I see they are making themselves fit for 
royal presence. Therefore the king is. And, again, the honest 
shepherd was content, and rejoiced in his heart. 

This story I tell because it is like a saying of Goethe. That 
poet said: " If there be not a God now, there will be some day." 
A very notable saying. The German poet differed from others 
by this saying, in forecasting the issue of development, instead 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 155 

of ransacking nature to understand its source. The aim of the 
movement, and prophecy of it, seemed to him as great and stable 
a point for faith and joy, as though he could perceive the source 
of it. For if the starting point, the setting out of all this great 
panoply of things, how they came to be together, and to be well 
measured in their places in the race and struggle for life, seemed 
doubtful, the common aim of them all appeared very plain, that 
they were all journeying to a royal grandeur, to a divine com- 
pleteness. 

If there be anything in the soul's instinctive idea of the 
infinite, surely it can mean no less than this, that nothing can be 
added, and nothing taken away; that there never was less than 
now, and never more, nor can be; that no atom can be added to 
being, and no quality to nature; that whether by development 
or any other manifestation, the quality, nature, attribute that will 
be, is simply the coming then into our perception of the quality, 
the nature, the attribute that now is; that whatever may be 
manifestly the tendency or aim of the universal motion, is so 
because already it is the nature of that which moves. 

I am used to delight much in the old Gnostic term, Pleroma, 
roundness, fullness; the fullness in which lies the possibility of 
the actual, and the ordained actuality of all possibilites ; the 
fullness from whose being all things proceed, in order to develop 
evermore unto its nature. 

Always the ecstasy of my own sense of being projects itself 
for me on earth and sky. Therewith arises in me the abso- 
luteness of my moral intuitions, the uncompromising eternal 
necessity of the ought, as well, too, as the soaring certainty of 
the pure reason. When I have bathed in these, I come con- 
sciously into the presence of the being which is the ground of 
the connection and participation of all stars and their peoples in 
the necessities of my conscience, and of the thoughts which start 
in me. Hence it is that the life within me has clothed itself 
with this absolute within me, in order to teach me that I am 
not born of two parents meiely, or of any time, but of the uni- 
verse and of eternity. The life which pours within me to keep 
up my pulse, which enters at the eye to quicken that pulse when 
a terror or a joy confronts my vision, opening the portal of any 
sense, nay, being sense itself, and then thrilling into an idea, or 



156 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

palpitating in the rapture of a thought, — that is the same life 
which undulates, waves, ascends, descends, circulates, blooms, in 
the related mysteries of light, sound, water, atmosphere, earth, 
tinting the summer's cloud, murmuring in the clash of the silex 
edges of grass-blades, turning the monstrous sun, and still vaster 
globes, on their axes, and then bringing down, as if obedient to 
me, and laying forth for me on a cotton screen the spectral 
chemistry of a star's atmosphere. 

We come, when thus we study ourselves, to think of that 
wonder which we name personality — our personality. And I 
hesitate not to say that it is the personality of God which is the 
being of my personality, of my identity, of my consciousness of 
myself. I say not that I know how to express to you, nay, nor 
to myself, the personality of God; and, above all, I mean not 
individuality. But what if I can not define? What then? As 
saith a noble discourse, " What then if God be incomprehensi- 
ble? Is it necessary to comprehend what infinite love is, in order 
to comprehend that the very substance of our being is mysteri- 
ously identified with whatsoever love in its essence means?"* 
Is it needful, in like manner I say, to comprehend what infinite 
personality is, in order to feel the soul quickening and thrilling 
with a kindred inexplicableness, a mysterious identity with 
whatsoever personality in its essence means? To be" incom- 
prehensible" is not to be "unknown" or "unknowable;" for 
there is nothing but touches in many points on the infinite, 
wherein it can not be comprehended. Nay, everything touches 
in all points on the infinite; if we seem to comprehend any 
thing, this is only because we co-ordinate it with other finite 
phenomena, which thus cover, I may say, their common mystery 
with a little cosmos of their own, having few and secondary rela- 
tions. 

But here stands, you will say to me, the old trial-difficulty; 
you are anthropomorphic. 

Very many persons think they have spoken immense wisdom 
and extinguishing logic, when they utter the word anthropo- 
morphic. Anthropomorphic means, in the form of a man, like 
to a man ; and they say, if we speak of the personality of God, 
we thereby make him like to a man. They say to me, You teach 

* Samuel Johnson, in The Radical ; vol. vii, p. 265. 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 157 

no idea of God, but only of a very great human being; and by 
reason of the nature of human faculties, this is all that can be 
taught. The uninstructed yearnings of the heart set their burn- 
ing fervor behind your faculties, and throw the shadow of them 
on the sky, and out of that shadow you carve the Deity. That 
is their claim. Well, let us take a near view of this. It has no 
frightful power to me. Of all places in the world, the pulpit is 
the place in which not to be afraid of anything. Let us ask 
what anthropomorphism is. 

Is anthropomorphism the ascribing to God of the nature of 
man? Well, if not in God, tell me how and whence that nature 
came into man? Whatever appears in the constitution of the 
finite, was first and eternally in the nature of the infinite. If 
this be anthropomorphism, I have no wish to shrink from it; 
because there can be no other reason for anything in man's 
constitution, than that it is in the source of man, in the being 
of his being. Wherefore, if I be asked how it is possible to 
ascribe to the infinite any finite nature, or thought, or any exer- 
cise, I ask how it is possible not to ascribe the nature of all 
things to that whose unfolding or manifestation all things 
are? 

But here I come to what I conceive to be the secret of this 
charge of anthropomorphism, and the opening out or explana- 
tion of it. It is so necessary to ascribe all things to the infinite, 
that anthropomorphism, that is, man-likeness, truly considered, 
is just the not doing so, but the ascribing somewhat to the 
nature of man alone. In other words, anthropomorphism con- 
sists, not in ascribing our fundamental nature or traits to God, 
but in not also, and in unity therewith, ascribing all other natures 
and traits to him. But a finite nature is not a false, but only a 
partial manifestation of the infinite, and the finite becomes 
infinite nature so soon as it is gathered in with all other mani- 
festations. 

Here, because I can not go forward another step otherwise, I 
will ask you to look with me for a moment at the meaning of 
the words analysis and synthesis. The one is to separate or divide 
anything into its parts; this is to analyze. To synthetize is to 
take the parts, or the constructing elements, and put them 
together to make the object. For example, suppose we wish to 



158 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

show the construction of a watch by analysis, we should then 
take it all apart mechanically, and lay its springs, its wheels, 
its balances, its cogs, its different kinds of metal and its jewels, 
all apart, each in its separate place. But if we wished to show 
the construction of that watch by synthesis, we should then 
assemble together all these various parts, and put them into 
place in the watch, and hold it up to the eye as a finished, 
collected, and completed object. Thus you see that analysis 
and synthesis are modes of defining and examining the nature 
of anything. Analysis shows what the thing is by showing its 
parts. Often, in order to do this, it is necessary to destroy the 
object; but that interferes not with analysis. Synthesis, on the 
other hand, shows or defines what an object is by taking the 
parts and making of them the object, or by showing the object 
in its wholeness without reference to its parts. To illustrate: 
Suppose I wish to define a flower, let us say a gentian, by analy- 
sis. I should, thereupon, pull off from its stem the cup or tube 
of it, and proceed to show that that by itself was a part of the 
flower, fringed at its edges. I should then show how the 
stamens, also being parts by themselves, were inserted in the 
flower, and call your attention to the other parts, the ovary, 
style, stigma, filaments, anthers, calyx, until, by all these par- 
ticulars, you had become acquainted with the flower by analysis. 
But now suppose I wished to do the same work by synthesis. 
Then I should try to describe to you the flower as it would look 
to your eye and come before you as for feeling and as a unit, not 
consisting of parts, but of parts gathered into the unit in which 
you behold it. It is synthetic account alone that shows any 
object in its living reality. If, for example, you would see the 
difference, read the botanical description of the Fringed Gen- 
tian, in any hand-book of botany, where you will find it 
described by analysis, — Lobes of the four-cleft calyx unequal, 
ovate and lanceolate, as long as the bell-shaped tube of the sky- 
blue corolla, the lobes of which are wedge-obovate and strongly 
fringed around the summit, four-lobed, regular; pod oblong, 
two-valved, one-celled, with two parietal placental, ovary free 
from the calyx ; stamens as many as the lobes of corolla and 
alternate with them. But thus the poet Bryant synthetizes, in 
his poem " To the Fringed Gentian:" 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 159 

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
Tbat openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night, 

Thou comest not when violets lean 

O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 

Or columbines, in purple dressed, 

Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and com st alone, 
When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near his end. 

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky, 
Blue— blue— as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 

If now I have made plain this difference, though so very 
briefly, between the art of dehniiig by analysis, with which goes 
destruction, and the defining by synthesis, which shows the 
unity of life, let me apply it to my subject. The life of Grod is 
infinite: it comprehends the most tremulous nebulous light 
which the wide-mouthed telescope barely focalizes, the intoler- 
able radiance of enormous suns and the momentum of their 
gross masses, the surface secrets of the stars, and the mysteries 
equally inscrutable of microscopic life on a square-miilionth 
inch of the earth's breast. Now, in all these manifestations, 
there seem to be what I may call foci of consciousness. We 
are such ; feeling creatures, in whom Grod develops intelligence, 
which has the power to turn an observant eye outward and 
inward, and by the analytic process to cut off ourselves and all 
other things, as little units in thought, as now I separate them 
from the ongoing manifestation, which is the perfect indivisible 
infinite. This isolation is what I mean by muteness. It comes 
from analyzing, that is, from taking the whole by its parts and 
viewing each part hy itself. And this is the necessary mode of 1 
mind in consciousness dawning in the manifestation of another 
consciousness; for it is involved in the very notion of thinking 
of ourselves, that we must; separate and divide ourselves from 
what contains us. The analytic process is a necessity to us; it 
is indeed ourselves. We may synthetize or unify in our little 
domain ; nay, by our mysterious sympathy with our source of 
being, we are constrained to do this, yes, and to find the highest 



160 KNOWLEDGE OP GOD. 

joy we know in this pursuit of The One in the Many; but we 
never can soar to that divine synthesis which would include our- 
selves, because discrimination is but another term for our very 
knowledge of ourselves, nay, for our very being. 

Analysis must always remain the root of every mental 
process, the hidden familiar of every pursuit of unity. Analy- 
sis has no limits. The reason is, that it is the very essence of 
our being. The mind may pulverize the universe, and detach it 
crumb by crumb for isolated contemplation, because, as I say, 
the analytic process is the very fiber of our own being. But on 
the road to unity, to that synthesis which is God, we can go but 
a very little "way. Soon we must shade our eyes, and stop 
through very excess of light. To merge all things in synthesis 
as we can crumble all in analysis, would be to unite ourselves in 
thought with our own source of life, in division and separation 
from which our consciousness consists, yea, of which the soul, 
as a derived being, ever must remain in uncreative ignorance. 
" In nothing," says the discourse that I have quoted, "is the 
inadequacy of the merely analytic process shown more conclusively 
than in its dealings with things spiritual in the interest of 
science. It never reveals truth in its divine form of life. To 
disect, it must destroy. It can not see any elements of existence 
as existent; for each lives in its active relations to the others. 
Analysis, however useful in its way, slays this beautiful unity in 
which power and life dwell. There is left a heap of dead fibres 
and organs; and what resemblance is there to the living body 
when you have put these together again?" * 

Now, anthropomorphism is to project analysis on God. It 
does not mean to ascribe to him, or to judge of him by, any 
power of mine, or of any being, for this is a mental necessity, 
and nothing is conceivable otherwise. But it means the not 
ascribing to him also of all traits of all beings at once in one 
indivisible unity; for God is the real synthesis of all the things 
that thrill in thought. No trait of nature in me limits him, 
unless I ascribe it to him apart from that vital unity in which 
he lives it and is it ; and this would be to limit him because 
instead of merging humanity with all natures in him, I then 

*The Radical, vol. vii, p. 261. 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 161 

should isolate God into humanity. Our circumstances circum- 
scribe us; but God's circumstances are all things, even our 
circumscription. The Infinite Life, the Infinitely Personal, can 
not be separated nor compared, nor in any way divided by sense 
or mind from the universal "Whole of Manifestation, since 
everything reveals and nothing in its place misrepresents him. 
The difficulty, the impossibility, is to take the whole and form 
one conception from the vast manifold. 

We can scarcely fashion to ourselves the least idea of the 
nature of a dog's consciousness, or of that of any being unen- 
dowed with language. But God is vocal in us, voiceless in the dog; 
and we are not guilty of deifying our own being when we ascribe to 
God whatever nature utters speech, yea, and the speaking of the 
speaking nature, if we also merge with it in him whatever soul 
is speechless. This can not be comprehended in its commete- 
ness, because by the necessities of our nature, synthesis in our 
minds can never be perfect. But I say it is sufficient for love 
and joy. It is knowledge of God none the less true for its 
limitations, since it is exact and right to affirm our whole nature 
of him, though we know not how this appears when it lives in 
God in vital indivisible unity with all else whatsoever. It is 
right to say God lives, God thinks, God acts. He acts, but he 
is the action of activity and the inaction of inactivity, and both 
at once in vital unity indivisible. The deftest play of the 
musician's fingers exists in vital oneness with the immovableness 
of mountains or stars in him. He thinks; but the most intri- 
cate triumphs of reason are one in him with the mysterious 
dawn of intelligence, with the inscrutable instinct of the spider 
which awaits classification. He loves, but inclusive of the indif- 
ference of some female fishes, and of the tenderest human 
maternity. " God," says Luther, " exists wholly in every grain 
of sand, and yet, at the same time, in, above and beyond all 
creatures. * * * Nothing is so small, but that God is still 
smaller; nothing so great but that God is still greater; nothing 
so short but that God is still shorter; nothing so long but that 
God is still longer; nothing so broad but that God is still 
broader; nothing so narrow but that God is still narrower." 
And so with personality. God is person; in simple reality and 
truth, person, as we are. But is not this, you will say, perhaps, 



162 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

to call him simply human? — a very great man, but only man? 
And is it any better than what the Grecian philosophers 
charged on other pagans, that if lions or oxen could worship, 
they would take a lion or ox for their god, a very great lion, but 
still a lion? Ah! here is the sublime mystery which rescues 
both, and leaves us with the Father, — that the li/m is right and the 
man is right. God is anthropomorphic, and leomorphic, man- 
like and lion-like, in the infinity of his omni-morphism. It is 
the truth of both which saves each, and makes the idea of each 
a reflection of a spiritual reality in God, wherein the personal 
and impersonal, and whatsoever may be higher than personal of 
which we dream not — if there be aught such; I know not, — 
exists, not in mixture, but in the indivisible perfection of one 
eternal life. 

Wonderful, heavenly, and yet simple as the babe's heart, 
appears the inference from all this concerning our knowledge of 
God. This inference and truth is, that we know him, not only 
as much as we know anything, but more. There is naught in 
life so known to us as the eternal stream of life, God. Only in 
their flight to unity in his bosom do any facts whatever let fall 
on the soul the mantle of their meaning. If by the analyzing 
quality of our being, we divide, separate, isolate, pulverize some- 
thing in order to know it the more perfectly, when we have 
done this and cut it off from God, behold, there is naught to it, 
naught left to know. It is only in its synthesis with all else 
whatsoever, that any being or thing, telescopic or microscopic, 
distills the drop of its living meaning. " All true science," says 
Buskin, " begins in the love, not the dissection of your fellow 
creatures ; and it ends in the love, not the analysis, of God." 

I have stood before a beautiful landscape in summer, and 
winter too, where the level meadow, with trees, river, hills 
climbing on their shadows, have blended in vast modest mag- 
nificence; and thus confronted, I have asked myself again and 
again, Does God now appear pressing on my sight? Like the 
old Oriental sage, I would say, if I could, "I see him with my 
eye." Does he appear there before my soul, now all wrought into 
vision? As often as I have viewed the sublimity as God lives 
it, all a' once, in the ecstasy of my consciousness of it more than in 
any detailed sight, the syllabled affirmation of my answer was 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 163 

faint to express the unspeakable depth and sincerity of the soul's 
conviction. God appeared to me just so long as I took the 
scene into my soul as a unit of beauty. So far as my eye could 
reach, he was there, living that unity of beauty and life. But 
he disappeared so soon as I took the elements, the rock, the 
tree, the flower, into the laboratory of analysis, and began to test 
them with reagents for divinity. I stood once on the shores of 
a lake on which the sun was casting setting rays of gold and 
crimson. Two persons said, " Let us sail out into that color 
which lies so gloriously on the water." But when they had sailed 
to the spot, they understood their folly; the color was as far be- 
yond them as before on the surface of the water, away off; and 
yet to the eyes of the persons on the shore, there they were, 
bathed in the full glory of it. So, when we go after a place, so 
I may say, of the glory of God, not knowing that there is no 
one place, but all is full thereof, when we come to that place, we 
find it not as we thought; yet to those who are looking after us, 
and see us in the whole, we are bathed in the glory of the light 
which our own eyes behold not. 

Meantime, there is no mystery in God which has not its 
corresponding mystery in us. His existence? There is our 
own being, which is simply a poise over a profound abyss of 
consciousness inexplicable. His mode of activity? There is 
the inscrutable mystery of our own will, which is all we know 
of any activity. His uniform law joined with his personal 
freedom? There is the equivalent sense and mystery of our 
liberty over against the strict laws of human movement which 
history displays. His eternity? There is the related mystery 
of time; for to our analytic consciousness, beginning and no 
beginning are equally inconceivable. His infinity? There is 
space, in which w T e move, which stretches before us infinitely, 
involved in that very analysis which is our being. His absolute 
and necessary nature? There are the answering intuitions of 
the pure reason, and above all, the imperative necessity of the 
moral command, the absolute authority of the Ought. 

These are all human mysteries, and all divine mysteries, 
nor could they be human if not divine, nay, nor divine if not 
human. 



WHY ANY EELIGION? 



Why any religion? What reasons for religion? Not why 
this religion, or that, is better than some other; not why I shall 
prefer one doctrine or system of thought; but why religion itself, 
any religion, is good. 

To answer this question there are three general methods. 

I might try to answer first, by studying the origin of re- 
ligion. This would be the historical method of answering the 
question. It is a good method. By it I should try to show the 
origin and growth of religion in the evolution of the faculties of 
human nature within the facts of human life. Thus, by indeed 
but simply reading the pages of human experience, I might 
show the need of religion to human life, its office to the soul of 
man, and its truth and divinity, as naturally unfolding in 
human experience. 

Again, for the second method, I might strive to answer the 
question by showing the usefulness of religion. This would be 
the experimental or utilitarian manner. This method, too, is 
not without its value. By no means I would despise it. Yet it 
seems to me to have been treated sadly, and to have fallen in- 
deed into very bad company and ill-usage; for it has been made 
the foundation of the salvation-doctrine, as the answer to the 
question, Why any religion? — the answer, namely, that religion 
is good because it offers an escape for mankind from the evils 
of his destiny, and the changing of them for good things; that 
is to say, to escape from hell, and to gain heaven. I shall spend 
no time over this answer to the question, because I think no one 
is hearing me this morning for whom it is not far bygone, long 
dropped by the wayside, yes, perhaps so far back in our ex- 



166 WHY ANY RELIGION. 

perience that hardly we can remember ever being perplexed or 
tried in spirit by this ancient gross answer to our question. 

There is, however, another way in which we may speak of 
the usefulness of religion, a right and salutary way. Sometime 
ago I had a conversation with a young man who has been a 
warm and valued friend for many years. It so warmed my 
heart that I thought at the time I would bring it into the pulpit 
for you, as a bit culled right out of life, an experience laid 
directly at the door of my mind, and therefore, perhaps, fresh 
and useful for you. I had not talked with him much for many 
years (he was a friend of my youth), and, meantime, he had 
engaged in a large business, which had been successful. He 
was now at the head of a business house ample in its returns, 
more than abundantly rich in this world's goods. But he came 
to me to ask some counsel, and also to make some proposals re- 
garding reading for himself. He said to me: " My friend, dur- 
ing these many years of close devotion to business, I have 
learned one thing of more advantage to me than all else that I 
have learned, and a dearer result of my experience than all the 
gains of property that I have made; this it is, that unless I 
keep my hold firmly on the spiritual, by and by I shall lose my 
hold also on the material. I mean," he said, " putting it now 
on the lowest basis that I can, not speaking of the great beauty 
of thoughts, the elevation of spiritual ideas, the poetry and re- 
ligion of life, but on its lowest plane, I mean that I can not be 
so good a business man if I attend not to the cultivation of my- 
self in soul. This," said he, " has been borne in on me more and 
more as I have faced the danger of so being absorbed in my 
business as to weaken my spiritual hold. Yes, I have been 
startled to find that unless I held hard to the heavens, I could 
not, in my daily work on the earth, be so successful, so wise, or 
so far planning. Now this," he said to me, "is not the highest 
ground on which to put the usefulness or value of religion, of 
poetry, of the prophet's dreams, the Psalmist's visions; never- 
theless, it is a true ground, and for that reason alone, if for no 
other, I wish to keep to the source of spiritual life, and know 
the aids to maintain it." 

This I think wise, noble, salutary, well worthy to be called 
a reason for religion. Let us call it, as my friend did, one of 



WHY ANY EELIGION. 167 

the lower reasons; but whatever reason is valid is not to be 
despised. It is a great and happy thing to see that if indeed 
simple religion be taken into the mind truly, purely, not as a 
salvation scheme, but as an inward elevation, inspiration, fer- 
vor, life must become wiser, grander in its sweep, the intelli- 
gence be broadened, man made more unselfish, business more 
truthful and noble, which means more productive in all ways, 
especially of happiness, politics no longer greedy and scandal- 
ous, and men no longer sellers of strong drink to degrade and 
ruin others for gain. Indeed, we shall see gentleness, happiness 
and peace on the earth when this religion dwells with us, nor 
men any longer brutal to women, nor women harsh to men, and 
home the abode of kindly offices and affectionate consideration. 
If thus true religion make all life better and nobler, truly I say 
it is an honest reason why religion should be, why we should 
cleave to it, and why this church should be builded. 

We must remember, too, that vital religious truths in the 
heart keep us in communication with nature, and with the 
ways of providence. My friend might have added, perhaps it 
was in his mind indeed, as one of the means by which spir- 
itual thoughts broadened his intelligence, that the spirit thus is 
attuned to the works of God, and therefore vibrates with them. 
I ask you this question, How shall you walk well on this earth, 
and profitably either for soul or for body, if you be at variance 
with the earth in spirit? How shall you use nature to your 
good if you be alien to the facts, the spirit and life that is in 
nature? But with religion we shall enter nature's beauty, glad- 
ness, riches, life, we shall behold the order of God's creation, 
which is maintained in the creatures of that creation, and we 
shall be filled with peace and power by harmony with that order. 
We shall learn to know everywhere a certain life j I say things 
will seem living to us if we have this religion in us. The wind, 
the rain, the sea, the shining starry night, are but moving bit s 
of a wondrous and infinite life which shall press on us with 
great moment and power and glory. Movements of nations, 
too, yea, the very sailing of ships, the inventions of men, all 
the wonderful providences of history, will be to us a living un- 
folding of Infinite Life and Power and wondrous Love. 

Is not religion, then, of mighty interest and value, if thus 



168 WHY ANY RELIGION. 

its presence in the soul keep us face to face with the Father in 
the works? 

Religion, also, from this point, this answer hy its useful- 
ness, is that which shields us in the hour of temptation. We 
all are tried. Who of you has not his temptations? Who is 
not more liahle to some errors than others? Sometimes very 
weak on one side, or, at least, not knowing your own strength 
there which you might know, tempted by wicked counsels with- 
out, by restless struggling feelings within? But religion is man's 
consciousness of the Infinite and Eternal Holiness over him. 
In the hour of temptation when the strength almost is gone — 
for never it wholly goes, but almost is gone, — and the fierce im- 
portunity of gain or passion has us in its grip, then this religion 
may be the anchor of strength, — to feel about us the holiness of 
God, and to think of it. Then the earth is a temple and we 
enter it. Many a man who has not strength standing upward, 
becomes a giant on his knees. We can turn away from evil, if 
only for a little; but if it be little enough to lift the eye, lo! we 
see with that eye the Holy Spirit, and a face looks out on us, if 
it be a face we seek. We feel the abiding strength, life, beauty, 
all about us, and then we can forsake that evil because in that 
company it hath become foreign, and of us no more. 

Again, for the third method, I might answer my question 
by an attempt to define and study the nature of religion. This 
is the philosophical manner. Of this I will say naught here, 
save that I have no displeasure with the method. It is right 
and well that we reason of all that belongs to us, that we ques- 
tion what the root of religion is in reason, that we ask what the 
facts of nature, as science unfolds them, have to say to religion, 
and religion to them. But this I pass over now, and say simply 
this, if any ask me, " Way any religion?" — simply this, that — 
Here it is! We are with it! It is with us! There are some 
things which it is right and well for the mind that we reason 
on, to justify them by process of thought, or by studying the 
facts; and yet, after we have done that, hardly have we added 
to them any authority, weight, power, since all their power is 
that here they are, with us, a great and glorious possession, and 
all their authority that they belong by nature to the human soul. 
We can give no reason why music, painting, poetry, are of 



WHY ANY RELIGION. 169 

worth and great effect to us, no reason, I say, so good as simply 
that here they are, and always have heen, in the beginning, 
now, and ever to be, great benisons from the past, wondrous 
blessings in the present, and prophecies that hold the future in 
keeping. We find them joy and beauty to us; and beauty, as 
Emerson says to the flower in the wilderness, " is its own excuse 
for being." To these great arts, and all that makes hfe glorious, 
we have but to say, that he that brought them here brought us. 
So to us they belong, because we with them belong to that Power 
and Goodness; and that is their sanction. So it is with love 
and trust and hope. And when these take on them a grand 
form, and grow into all that they may come to in human life, 
they become religion; but after they have become religion, love, 
trust and hope are as little to be crowned by any argument as 
before, when they were the tender springings of the human 
heart in human fellowships. Simply then, I say, here is religion 
with us, expressing our highest being. Wherefore if 1 be asked 
" Why any religion?" — rather would I, than try to tell why, 
say that there is no question, nor anything to be questioned or 
asked; but that here it is in us, and no more driven to give a 
reason for itself, or warrant itself by argument, than is that 
reason which asks a reason. To be religious, is simply to be 
our true selves, and never are we our true selves unless this holy 
somewhat, which sometimes we know not how to speak or write, 
nay, never quite truly, sometimes not at all, glows deeply and 
sacredly in the spirit. .For whatever may be said of us, how- 
ever we came here, or wherever we go, it is sure that now we 
are the children of the Source of all, and made tooin his image 
by just so much as we have the thought of him. Are we not 
then our true selves when this flames up in us, and then over 
us into the heavens, into prayers, to seek its source as all flame 
must? 

Consider how important it is that all things here, all beings, 
should be what they were meant to be, to unfold themselves 
according to the ideas written within them. What famine and 
suffering spread if corn be blasted in the ear, not being what it 
is meant to be. Only as creatures fulfill their nature, the proper 
nature of God and his purpose is wrought out in them, and the 
beauty, symmetry and order of this creation, which is his ap- 



170 WHY ANY RELIGION. 

pearance, is unrolled. How past all speaking, then, the need 
that man, the chief of these works, the work among them that 
looks forth with consideration on all the other works, the child 
of the Father, the thinking one, the being who understands that 
mystic syllable ought, that he, I say, should unfold him selfglo- 
riously as he was meant to be, that each may see the light of 
heaven, yea, I would say, the reflection of the face of God, in a 
brother's eye, and the presence of God in every chastened spirit 
and holy life; and that the earth may complete itself in beauty, 
to be finished in the spiritual loveliness of its highest being, 
wherein yet it waits to be finished. 

Keligion so concerns the whole of life, that, as the earth by 
the 'atmosphere thereisnopart but thus is made fruitful. Yes, 
pure religion sanctifies every act and word. If you will, you 
may breathe in this holy power with the atmosphere — at every 
breath, if you will — and the whole earth of green and gold may 
be to you an altar. For surely the atmosphere is the atmosphere 
of the maker of it, who lives in all its motions, and the green 
and gold of the earth is but the blooming where the foot of God 
is set. The wide heavens may be your holy place; for there, 
not therein, but there, all over, is the throne of him. The sun 
may be your evangelist, new every morning, re-writing the 
Scriptures from the beginning and making a new Genesis each 
day. The stars of night may be the shining paths of minister- 
ing spirits, coming down to take your soul and on their shining 
tracks carry it up thither where they are. Wherever there is 
truthfulness, vitality, goodness and love in the heart and life, 
there is the kingdom of God. Whether a man be a churchman, 
or to no church going, a Christian, a Mohammedan, a Pagan, it 
is the same. " The majesty of God, the safety of God, the im- 
mortality of God, enter into any man with justice;" and if the 
church know not and behold not this kingdom, wherever it be, 
then the church has not entered into its own. Religion, which 
thus runs freely down where the soul is athirst, which is the 
song of earth, sea and sky, and makes its home everywhere in 
the pure in heart, this needs give no other account of itself, nor 
answer any question ; for that thus it is and does is simply to 
maintain itself from God. 

Religion is pure and undefiled by nature, filling all those 



WHY ANY RELIGION. 171 

faculties which lift us up above speechless creatures, nay, lift 
them too, I fain would think, yea, do believe ; for I know not 
but somewhat of the ought trembles in the shame or love of an 
intelligent speechless creature among our dumb brethren. Ee- 
ligion brings us all to thoughts surely the grandest, the most 
momentous, the most personal, as well as most sublime, which 
can try mind, or search heart; thoughts too which no one shall 
ever run away from and go far but there he shall find they have 
come up to him, and once voiced are never silent, but will come 
speaking to us, in many forms, and in great experiences hi life, 
to threaten, humble, encourage, command, inspire. Thus re- 
ligion lifts us up to the heights which otherwise we could not 
conceive. We know them only as somehow we find ourselves 
suddenly standing there, and all the majesty of the earth, the 
heavens above, and the sea under, lying before us. I feel sure 
we are in the hands of Holy Spirit, whose life lights the uni- 
verse. Is there one of you who feels not sure of that? Then 
saith the poet and the Psalmist, and the Christ, " that he pities 
us like as a father pitieth his children," and " covers us with the 
shadow of his wings." The raindrops fall musically, and the 
showers of the summer night array the shining tresses of the 
earth that the dawn may find this good globe clothed and beau- 
tiful; and the winged drops meantime, lest they be cruel in 
doing this great good, are turned aslant by the Father's hand, 
and the tender bird, which I wonder at day after day in our cold 
winters, when forth he comes into the late-rising light, "whose 
own warm wing his pillow was," slept dry and unchilled in rain 
and ice, and chinks the diamond drop from leaf and spray in the 
morning on awakening with the sun to his sunny song. The 
Father of us all " hears the ravens when they cry," " He gives 
the young ravens their food," and " providently caters for the 
sparrow." His is the golden harvest, his the sun that warms 
the ground. He hath planted life in the human heart, he giveth 
children to our tenderness, and crowneth the aged head with 
honor! 

There have been creeds which were cruel creeds. But 
when I look forth on all these wonders, this beauty, I know, nor 
do I speak to anyone that knows not, that the cruelty, injustice, 
and pain from which my soul revolts never can be the will of 



172 WHY ANY RELIGION. 

him of whose infinite love and tender mercy my soul is but a 
faint reflection. 

Thus I answer the question, Why any religion? — that to 
speak the word is to answer it; that in truth I know no question, 
when forth I look on heaven and forth go on the earth, but only 
that the ear, quickening on the heights of love, faith, duty, as 
the ear doth when lifted whither sounds are ascending, hears 

" at times a sentinel, 
Who moves about from place to place, 
And whispers to the worlds of space 
In the deep night that all is well." 

All-is well! What can I beg? What question ask? The 
facts within me, which are Prayer, Praise, Love, Joy, Faith, are 
like the depth of the sea, the light of the heavens! Nor more 
to be questioned by me than the sea, nor more to be hung with 
darkness by me than the heavens! These facts within me are 
facts as great as any of the earth, and the laws of them as 
mighty as any laws of earth's objects or creatures. What can I 
beg? What question ask? 

" Wish is worsted, hope o'ersped, 
And aye to thanks returns my thought. 
* * * * 

Still pours the flood of golden good, 
And more than heartfull fills me." 



THE ONE EELIGION. 



Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world'.' 
1. Corinthians, vi, 2. 



Like many a text for a sermon, this is no more than a 
motto, for I use it not in Paul's meaning. The apostle's inten- 
tion in the words is very plain. He is reproving Christians for 
going to law with one another before heathen judges. He says 
they should settle their disputes by referees among themselves. 
Indeed, he says, better suffer wrong than bring any quarrels 
before the " unrighteous," or "unbelievers" — for by both these 
words Paul names the common law courts of the Roman world. 
The Christians he calls " saints," and this is a very common 
use of the term throughout the New Testament. The Greek 
word translated saints means holy, and is the same word used 
in the phrase " The Holy Spirit." But, as I say, it has in a 
multitude of passages the simple sense of converts to Christ- 
ianity and members of the Christian commimity. Paul's argu- 
ment is that, as the saints are to judge the world when Christ 
reappears in his power and glory, it is a shame if they be n >t 
able to judge the small matters of differences among themselves 
in the present. 

But I take the text as a general assertion of pure idealism. 
It is true, indeed, that the saints shall judge the world; the 
holy, the high, the generous, the purely honest, and those that 
aim at unblemished lightness and truthfulness, shall judge the 
world. For the ideal never will stoop, and as things cannot stand 
still, but must move, and either the ideal come down or man go 
up, it is certain that men must move, and the ideal will stay 
and live in heaven to be worshiped. 

But now, why shall the saints judge the world? or rather, 



174 THE ONE BELIGION. 

how is it that the good and the true, and they who will not 
break down the ideal, shall lead and judge? This is a great 
thought. I know of none more religious or touching more deeply 
the nature of man and the being of God. The reason the saints 
shall judge the world is, that saints are seers; that those who 
really do wish to know and then to follow the one right, beauti- 
ful, adorable way, will see it and fail not of it. If any fail, it 
is because they have a mixture of motives. They are willing to 
conform, to cut down or pare away the ideal, and take means 
that are only half fair and good. But no one will fail to see the 
best way in good time, whose whole heart is for that way when 
he shall find it. Jesus said this in one of the most profound 
sayings he ever uttered, according to the fourth Evangelist: " If 
any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine or 
teaching." This is why the saints shall judge the world, because 
being pure in purpose and method, or willing to do God's will, 
they are seers, to see the way and know the doctrine, as Jesus 
said. 

Now, seers must see the same things; for they can see only 
what is to be seen, and see it as it is. God is one and inhabiteth 
eternity, as saith the prophet, or, in another place, "from ever- 
lasting to everlasting he is God," — which means that the holy 
and right and victorious way is the same for all eternity. An 
apostle has said it in another way — " With Him is no variable- 
ness, neither shadow of turning." Therefore, the seers who see 
His way, must see all alike; and whether they be parted by 
thousands of leagues, or by thousands of years, still they see 
and speak all alike, for the things they see are eternal with " no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning." But these things they 
would not see if they wished not to follow the eternal. If they 
were thinking how to mate and match little matters in time, 
and how to swerve a little from the true way to pick up this 
advantage, or how, again, to veer a little on another side to 
catch this gain or that ease, then they would see not the one 
eternal way, the right, the ideal, the true, which has the power 
of God to judge the world. But, as they look not at the lower 
things, but only with a holy and true devotion, at the simple 
right as it is, they see, and they see alike, and always have said 
the same things. 



THE ONE RELIGION. 175 

I have found great delight, mental and moral glow, spiritual 
inspiration, in reading the Scriptures of other religions besides 
the Hebrew and the Christian. And 'tis no wonder; for why 
should I not be lifted on wings that have proved strong to bear 
whole nations heavenward? Not alone the Hebrew and Christ- 
ian histories, preachings, psalms, laws, precepts, exhortations, 
warnings, have been strength, comfort, and instruction in temple, 
hall and home, but the Scriptures of all other religions too. All 
have been mighty to command, to inspire, to uphold holy lives, 
support self-sacrifice unto death, and sustain humble, life-long 
faithfulness. Wherefore, I say, 'tis no wonder that holy pages of 
Scripture which have beamed so much for other men, however of 
a different climate, countenance and race, should shine also 
with a white and holy light to me. 

Now, in reading these other Scriptures, I have observed 
four stages in myself. At first I found little ir> them — only here 
and there a bit that truly appealed to my mind and stirred me. 
On the whole I looked on them slightingly. I gleaned from 
them no more than certain precepts. These Scriptures of the 
nations were alien to me, foreign to my habits of mind and 
feeling, not fitted to my mental experience or my religious ex- 
pressions. Hence, as I say, I slighted them, and from my shal- 
low dips into them was wont to return to our own Bible with a 
new emphasis, an enlarged conception of the vast advantage 
and superior grandeur of our Scriptures. 

My second stage came slowly. It resulted from frequent 
returns to the other Scriptures, till by many resorts to them and 
by some happy circumstances I was led to read them deeply and 
long, and linger over them. Then they became to me far more 
than an assemblage of precepts, or fields where I might glean 
here and there some fine bits of moral wisdom. Slowly I en- 
tered into the spirit of them. I began to go to them as to some- 
thing living and moving with human life lifting itself to the 
Divine Life. Then I was impressed, filled and moved; then I 
admired and reverenced; because I had come to the spirit of 
them sympathetically in some measure, as those peoples do in 
large measure whom the Scriptures feed and inspire in the na- 
tive abodes of them. 

My third stage was a return to our own Bible after this 



176 THE ONE RELIGION. 

sympathetic and deeper reading of other Scriptures. My former 
judgment seemed to me to be maintained and assured. The 
Hebrew Scriptures still seemed exceedingly grander, vaster, 
richer, deeper than all others. But now I had the advantage — 
a great one— of better equipment for judging, and I found my 
love of our own Scriptures quickened and dignified by my sym- 
pathy, if I may say so, with Scripture itself, which I had found 
living in all Scriptures. 

This led to the fourth stage, which is a hightened and joy- 
ful sense of the greater glory and grandeur of the Hebrew 
Bible, not merely in comparison with others, nay, nor mainly 
so, but chiefly by its part in the glory of the whole, because it 
stands not alone on a plain, but towers above comrade peaks, all 
of which pierce the heavens. Then the full splendor and the 
grand height of the Hebrew Scriptures begin to appear, when 
they show in this fellowship with all Bibles, the most sublime 
stanzas of one sublime psalm heard everywhere on the earth, 
which is Keligion itself. 

This morning I will bring before you some sayings of the 
holy saints and seers of the world, spoken in differing Scriptures, 
that you may see once more that they have said the same things, 
and that all lovers of the truth are one, and that all children of 
men are one in God. 

Take first, some sayings regarding watchfulness, that we 
must watch ourselves if we will grow in any grace. Now, when 
we think of this, what shall we look for in the sayings of the 
saints and seers? First we shall expect the thought that we 
must watch ourselves toward God, which is to say, toward the ideal 
and the perfect. We have to watch that the aim be worthy of 
eternal counsels, and then the means worthy of the aim. Every 
one will say that to set up a wrong end or aim is to make war 
on God. But many say that, while the aim must be pure and 
perfect, yet we must consider that we have but poor creatures to 
work with, who are warped and turned awry, and full of mis- 
guidance, passion, pride, and a thousand hindrances. Where- 
fore, say they, we must come down a little in our means and 
please the prides and the selfishness, that we may cajole them 
to good ends. But, to follow low motives and ways to please 
men, what is this but to be braver toward God than toward men, 



THE ONE RELIGION. 177 

thinking that we may outface the perfect and the eternal to gain 
credit with the transitory and the vain? Again, we shall expect 
the saints and the seers to say that we must watch ourselves toward 
other men; first, that we judge rightly, as we cannot do if we judge 
proudly or fiercely, or selfishly; which Jesus said thus — that if, 
having a beam in our eye, we try to take out the mote from an- 
other's, we cannot do it, nor even see the mote as it is. And, 
secondly, we must watch ourselves in order that we may be able 
to help any one; for, if we cannot look after ourselves aright, 
how can we help others? and if we keep not ourselves in the 
way, how can we guide others in it? 

Here, now, I will read you some sayings from the saints 
and seers that you may see that truly they do say these things, 
which we should look for them to say: — 

From Buddhist wisdom we have, u The sins of others are 
seen easily; but if a man look for these and find fault, his own 
weaknesses will grow.'' 

Confucius says, " If a man cannot improve himself, how 
can he improve others. When we see noble men, we should 
think of equaling them. When we see evil characters, we should 
turn our look inward and examine ourselves. Only he who has 
the most complete sincerity under heaven can transform and 
inspire others." 

Socrates says, " The only short, safe, and good way is to 
strive to be really good in the things in which we wish to be 
thought good. Whatever are called virtues among men may be 
gained by study and exercise." 

Says Confucius again, " To see what is right, and not to do 
it, is the part of a cowardly mind." 

From the Zoroastrian Scriptures, " Give me, God, these 
two desires — to see, and to question myself. Watch thyself 
with all diligence; master thyself; so mayest thou teach others 
and subdue them, for thyself is hardest to subdue." 

In like manner Jesus, " Watch and pray, that ye enter not 
into temptation." 

Take, next, the duty and interest which we name Character, 
simple goodness, honesty, purity, devotion, unsefishness. What 
shall we expect the holy seers to say about these? We shall 
expect them to say the ideal things which are true forever and 



178 THE ONE RELIGION. 

ever, from everlasting to everlasting. Therefore, they will say, 
first, that the goodness and pure virtue which looketh to God for 
Himself and not for reward or praise or advantage, is the chief 
of all things to be thought of by men. The seers will say that 
there is nothing in religion or life like to the preciousness of 
pure character. Then, secondly, they will say that this always 
may be had; that outward things not always may be had, for 
some persons may gain more of them and some less; and often 
losses happen; but ingenuous goodness may be had, for it is in our 
power to be simply true, and strength is never far distant, but 
close at hand. Thirdly, we shall expect the seers to say that 
this pure character grows in us by many small fidelities, by 
which we become strong for constancy of goodness and for great 
requirements or exigencies. It has been said truly that by re- 
iterated small choices betwixt good and evil we make our moral 
state, which thus is a growth very slow, and yet swift too, and 
momentous past all words. Finally, we shall expect the seers 
to say that when thus by faithfulness we have attained unto 
purity of heart and constancy of character, the eyes will be 
opened to all divinity, beauty, glory, to infinity. Here, now, I 
will give you some sayings from holy seers, that we may behold 
whether they do say these things: — 

From Buddhist wisdom we have, " If a man conquer in 
battle a thousand times a thousand men, and if another conquer 
himself, he is the greater conqueror, and the greatest of all. 
Think not lightly of evil. Drop by drop the jar is filled. Think 
not lightly of good. The wise are filled with purity, gathering 
it drop by drop." 

Zoroaster says, "Adore God by means of sincere actions." 

The Laws of Moses say, " Thou shalt not kill, nor bear 
false witness, nor covet, nor steal, nor profane the name of God. 
Thou shalt not oppress another, but love thy neighbor as thyself. 
Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt rise 
up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man ; 
and fear thy God." 

Jesus, to the same purpose, " Blessed are they who hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed 
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 

Next I will take the thought and grace of love. In this 



THE 0:S~E RELIGION, 179 

matter what shall we expect of the seers? First, we shall look 
for the holy diviners to say that love is the greatest of all powers; 
that its strength is like almightiness ; that it is so strong that 
even if for a time, nay forever (if we can imagine such a thing) , 
it be without effect on another's heart, still we shall be weak in 
the work and effort if it be not in our own. Secondly, we shall 
look for the seers to say that love never must be overthrown in 
us so as to return hatred for hatred; nay, but love for hatred, 
and peace for anger, and every good for any evil. Again, we 
shall expect the seers to say that a pure and good love in us, and 
a greatness and devotion of love, and a great scope and breadth 
of it, relate us closely to God, for he is infinite love. With this 
now I will read you some saying of the seers, that we may hear 
if they say these things about love: — 

The Zoroastrian Scriptures say, " Let us be such as help 
the life of the future." 

Confucius says, " Love to speak of the good in others. 
Treat not others as you would not wish them to treat you. 
Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will 
come." 

Buddhist wisdom teaches, " If there be any who hate, 
dwell among them free from hatred. Overcome anger with love, 
evil with good, the selfish with generosity, the false with truth: 
for wrath is not stilled by wrath at any time. Anger ceases by 
love — this is an everlasting law. If one have boundless and im- 
partial good will, where he is the saying is come to pass, This is 
the abode of holiness." 

Jesus says, " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy. Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called 
the children of God." 

Take next the virtues of simplicity and humility. What 
shall we look for the holy teachers to say of these things? 
First, surely they will say that we must ask much of ourselves 
rather than of others : that if rightly we be simple and lowly in 
mind, we shall not be asking or demanding always something of 
others — nay, but rather take with great gratitude what is given, 
as being more than perchance we deserve, and yet less than we 
exact of ourselves to give. Nay, but why should I say exact, 
for if we be simple and lowly minded, we shall be outpouring by 



180 THE ONE RELIGION. 

nature, and never think of it, except that it is joy. And, 
secondly, the seers will say that simplicity and humility are 
especially the graces of unconscious childhood, are like to the 
beauty and gentleness and softness of a simple child; and that 
when this continues into mid-life, and goes on upward till it sits 
like a crown on the head of age, which is to say, when the sim- 
plicity of the child is joined with the knowledge of the man, then 
comes to pass the greatest beauty. Again, the seers will say 
that there is vast strength and power in humbleness and sim- 
pleness of spirit; that these graces have a strength like to love, 
and perhaps a very part thereof, for what great love ever was 
there which was not simple and humble? Wherefore, it is the 
meek, the patient and the simple that prevail at last. Listen 
now to a few words from some of the holy teachers on these 
points: — 

Confucius says, " He who requires much from himself and 

little from others, will save himself from anger. What the noble 

man seeks is in himself; what the ignoble seeks is in others. " 

And Mencius says, " The noble man is he who loses not his 

child-heart." 

Socrates teaches, " To want as little as possible is to make 
the nearest approach to God." 

In like manner Jesus, " He who receiveth not the kingdom 
of heaven like a little child shall in no wise enter therein. 
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed 
are the lowly in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 

I will take now the principle and fact of retribution. Of 
this surely the seers will say that it is certain. They will- say 
that any foe of a good thing who has fallen on it to beat it 
down, 

" Self assured that he prevails, 
Sees aloft the red. right Arm 
Straight redress, the eternal scales." 

They will say that our sin shall find us out — nay, that already 
it has found us out, and never had to look for us, but always 
was with us ; nor hides from us, nor ever lets us hide from our- 
selves. Again, they will say that the law of retribution is fixed 
in all things, in the earth, in the waters, in the air, in our bodies, 
and that all things muster and enlist to punish the evil deed, and 
that it never escapes, nor can cover itself in any way, because it 



THE ONE RELIGION. 181 

drags its own punishment on it by the law and nature of all 
things. Also the seers will say that though all the elements 
gather to punish, with pains, weakness, disease, loss, death, 
whatever eternal councils have judged wicked or wrong, yet the 
worst penalty is the evil deed itself; for it is worse to be bad than 
to suffer for being bad, and the greatest punishment is to be 
what must be punished; and this truth, however it delay, at last 
will burn its way to us, and on us, till we cry to heaven out 
of fires of shame. Now I will read you some of the seers' 
sayings of retribution, from Buddhist Scriptures: " There is a 
treasure that anyone may possess, laid up in the heart, charity, 
pity, temperance, a treasure that none can take away; but our 
sin will come back upon us like fine dust thrown against the 
wind. Not in the sky nor in the midst of the sea, nor in the 
clefts of the mountains is any place known where a man may 
escape frcm his evil deeds. For the evil doer burns by his own 
deeds, yea, as if burned by fire. But there is no evil for one 
who does no evil. Not even divine power could change into de- 
feat a man's victory over himself. Asa rock is not shaken by 
the wind, so the good swerve not in good report or evil report." 
Once more, take the subjects that lie close to the heart of 
religion, at least if we may say that any one grand thought lies 
closer to religion than another, I mean the thoughts of God 
and Providence. What shall we expect the holy teachers and 
diviners to say on these thoughts? Many and great things in- 
deed, neither the number nor the greatness of which I can bring 
before you now; and yet, I may say also, but few things, for all 
the thoughts that we can have of God and his ways with us 
gather together into but two or three very great and glorious 
thoughts, which hold all the others and gather them in, as the 
ocean all the rivers. First, we shall expect the seers to speak 
of the infinite and holy order, which is God's nature shown to 
us and living in all things. They will speak of the oneness 
which is in all things, from stars to water-drops, from a beast's 
pangs to a saint's sorrows, from an animal's love to a man's 
prayer. Through all, they will tell us, one thought, one life, 
one love, one law runs never wearied, never changing, never in- 
vaded, never broken, nor hindered, but always almighty, and 
always upbuilding righteousness, Again, the holy diviners will 



182 THE ONE RELIGION. 

say: What have we to fear with God? and they will answer: 
Nothing to fear. For first, we have not God to fear, since " all 
his power is to do good," and all his eternal glory to bless and 
preserve. And if we have not to fear God, but only to trust and 
believe, to wait, pray, give thanks, and never be afraid, then 
what else can be feared possibly? Surely it is plain that we 
have either to be afraid of God or of nothing, since everything 
is in his hands. And, again, we shall look to have the holy 
teachers tell us that God is not to be argued, or inferred or 
sought by proofs a long way off, but is to be seen and heard and 
known about us, and no one so much seen and known; nay, not 
even ourselves to ourselves, for we lie " dim and invisible in 
him," knowing him when we can not follow ourselves within his 
life. Yea, the seers will tell us that God appears to us, and that 
in all the glory of nature we do look on his face, and in all the 
sounds of the earth, and most in the human voice, and most in 
that when most it is filled with love and hope and thankfulness, 
we do hear with our very ears the voice, the speech of God. 
Now I will read you some of the sayings of these holy teachers 
of these thoughts: — 

Socrates says, " Let any man be of good cheer about his 
soul who has ruled his body and delighted in knowledge in this 
life; who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which 
are temperance, justice, courage, nobility, and truth. In these 
arrayed, the soul is ready for the journey even to another world, 
when the time comes. For if death be the journey to another 
place, and there all the dead are, what good can be greater than 
this? Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, 
that no evil can happen to a good man either in life or after 
death. God orders and holds together the whole universe in 
which are all things beautiful and good. He keeps it always 
unimpaired, unconfused, undecaying, obeying his law swifter 
than thought, and in perfect order." 

The Zoroastrian Scriptures say, " Him whom I exalt with 
my praise I now see with my eye, knowing him to be God, the 
reality of the good thought, the good word, the good deed." 

In like manner Jesus, " Are not two. sprarows sold for a 
farthing — and not one of them shall fall on the ground without 
your Father. Fear ye not therefore, When ye have need, it 



THE ONE RELIGION. 183 

shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall say, for it 
is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh 
in you." 

''We can take the entire range of the religions of the world, 
and we shall find in all, something of the spiritual element pre- 
sent, something of the endeavor to reach the light, some attempt 
to articulate, or spell at least, a syllable of the name ineffable. 
All have aspiration, and all, viewed on the ethical or moral side, 
have some influence that freely accepted, would lift and improve, 
if not liberate and sanctify the worshiper. Homer says fittingly, 
'all men yearn after the gods.' ' If we will but listen atten- 
tively,' says Max Muller, ' we can hear in all religions a groan- 
ing of the spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to utter 
the unutterable, a longing after the infinite, a love of God.' St. 
Augustine declares that 'there is no religion which does not 
contain some grains of truth,' and Max Mueller again says, 
' There is no religion, or if there is, I do not know it, which 
does not say, ' Do good, avoid evil."* 



" Thanks be to God for his holy saints ; thanks be to him who giveth wisdom, 
Which in all ages entering into holy souls maketh them friends of God and 
prophets." 

0, blessed the fact that we have those who claim us for the 
ideal, who never will let us down, nor even grant that we shall 
fail, but hold up our spirits to go in a starry way, and to see 
light always in the skies whatever the night be. Oh, blessed! 
that we have the prophets and seers, the saints and diviners who 
never will permit to us a low aim but always insist on the high- 
est, and then never will allow the highest to be sought in any 
but the highest way! Who never will bend to low motives, 
never will seek prides, or advantages, or prejudices, or parties, 
or hatreds, or anything paltry, but always only the truth of God 

♦Charles D. B Mills, in Unity, January 24, 1890, on " The Transient and Per- 
manent in Religion." 



184 THE ONE BELIGION. 

by the way of the love and peace of God. 

And, oh let us give thanks for these deviners or holy souls, 
because the;/ are e-eryivhere! How sad if we only had such teach- 
ers, but no others had! How mournful if only in our language 
their holy words breathed and burned, but in no other tongue ! 
How sorrowful if all men who have not our teacher had no 
other of like kindling power and pure glory to their souls! 0, 
blessings and thanks, praises and hymns, music and anthems, 
songs, rejoicings, gratulations and jubilees, that it is not so — 
that never any people is without witness of God; never any 
tongue without its Scriptures ; never any world in all the uni- 
verse of stars but has, we may be sure, its Christs and its holy 
pages of true religious inspiration; and all are one in the One! 
For 'this, songs, triumphs and rejoicings, music and anthems, 
thanks, blessings, hymns and praises ! 



FAITHFULNESS. 



" Faithful unto death."— Revelations, II, 10. 

I am to speak to you this morning of Faithfulness. 

It is nearly fifty years ago that a young girl was living in 
the city of Boston. She was fortunate in her home and in her 
friends. She had been brought up in a circle of great cultiva- 
tion and refinement, of very lovely social life, with troops of 
good people about her, many of whom were dear to her, and all 
helpful, instructive, refined, elevated. At the time that I speak 
of, this girl, finely educated, excellently trained in mind and in 
all the social virtues, was sought in marriage by a young man 
who was to come hither to what was then the wild West, to take 
for himself a farm, and live the life of a cultivator of the soil. 
This girl joined her lot with his, forsook all the charm of the 
life she was accustomed to, and came to a place not very far 
away from this city, a place where then the ground was just 
broken for cultivation, the neighbors few and far, and the society 
a pioneer company at the outposts of civilization. 

I, at the time, was a very little child in the city of Brook- 
lyn, New York State, just beginning the unfolding life of child- 
hood, listening and growing, learning, imicating, using my 
opening powers in a home that was very sheltered, very quiet, 
and full of good social life. 

Forty years passed away. Let us look at what these forty 
years had borne in fruit in the life of this young girl that I 
speak of. When she found herself in the Western country, the 
new country all unbroken and untamed, and the people about 
her for the most part as untamed as the soil, she thought very 
carefully and earnestly over the problem of life before her. She 
said to herself, — " Here am I, taken away from all those things 
that would have ministered to my mind, that were educating, 
training, strengthening me, making me full of resources, mental, 
spiritual and moral. I find myself suddenly put into this new 



186 FAITHFULNESS. 

place, which bids fair to be full of daily toil for the common neces- 
sities of life. New ground is to be broken, much labor done in 
gleaning food even from this virgin soil, and all the great work of 
making a home to be undertaken, in a wild and untried place. 
Now, said the girl to herself, there is great danger of my being 
so absorbed in this labor as to be sunk in it out of sight of those 
spiritual realities which happily have been my lot heretofore ; 
wherefore I must make it my rule, she said, and my great and 
strenuous effort all the time, to keep a firm hold of the idealities 
of life, of the spiritual values, things which have helped me not 
to acquire but to be ; I must see to it that I continue to grow, as 
heretofore I have had the means of growing, in mind and soul. 
I must keep my hold on the ideal within me and without me. 

With this reflection she began her life in the three great 
relations into which she had come. First among them was the 
relation of a wife. She must take her share in the joint labor 
and partnership of marriage. She began, therefore, early to 
make it a point in her life to keep the home full of cheer. She 
said to herself that with all the disadvantages of her position 
compared to that from which she had come, still in one way she 
had more advantages than her husband; for her work, if it were 
somewhat more monotonous, was at least more sheltered, and 
had within it more moments to be gleaned for little sprays of 
thought and swift upliftings of soul and mind. Wherefore it 
devolved chiefly on her, she said, as she thought it did on the 
women always, to beautify life. She thought this a power spe- 
cially given to the womanly soul; it lay on her, she considered, 
to keep " sweetness and light," as Matthew Arnold has it, a 
lovely cheer, a beautiful feast not only for the eye so far as might 
be, but for the soul always, in her home. Sober husband never 
came into the house but he found therein, however dark the day, 
the inward light of a smile, nor did he ever note that cheer was 
wanting. By many a little deft touch of the hand she made 
that beauty of the spirit come forth, and so far as the poor purse 
of the young couple served, she decorated her home with outward 
forms and signs of spiritual grace. Her external means for 
doing this work were three: First, she studiously cultivated 
flowers. Secondly, having been bred at her home very finely 
<and skillfully in music, she never neglected the practice and 



FAITHFULNESS. 187 

cultivation of that art. She had brought with her from her 
Eastern home her instrument, a good piano, the only one in that 
little settlement, and she resolved that one of her most serious 
duties should he to maintain her skill and her interest in musi- 
cal exercise. The other outward means was reading. She had 
but few books ; wherewith then she began to learn what Robert- 
son says he found in himself, that to read deeply was better far 
than reading much. Quickened by her conscience, her love and 
her aspiration, she made these few books minister to her mind 
perpetually, and grew on that food by the depth of her penetra- 
tion into the author's meaning and feeling, and by her own 
cheerful following forth of the lines of the thinker's thought. 

By these means she decorated and cheered her home. And 
here was the secret of her success, that never in any day did she 
omit her care of these means. She early learned this great 
secret, which many learn only when the opportunities are gone 
and we have to look back on a failure which was so insidious as 
we went along that we knew not why we failed — this secret, that 
it was not enough to resolve that she would do this thing or that 
thing each day, however momentous it might seem to her when 
she made the resolve, but that time must be used more definitely, 
and that one means of success lay in resolving to do a certain 
thing at a certain hour each day, and to devote just so much 
time to it. By that means she was able to succeed. Thus, with 
all the labors and all the cares of a young farmer's wife, in 
which she was faithful to the end as well as she was in those 
other things, she never failed in any day to take her time to read 
for her soul's good and schooling, and her time to play and sing 
for the sake of grace and beauty, and her time to cultivate her 
flowers; all of which she made as essential as the preparation of 
the food that her husband brought from his cornfields. 

Here I perceive a great lesson in this life, which I will stop 
a moment in the narrative to mention. The lesson is this, — 
Set your ideals high. For if you set your aim high, you will 
have always somewhat that is worthy of your faithfulness. To 
have that which by its very nature is a perpetual invitation, 
never stooping to you, but calling you, if you would enjoy it, up 
into the higher regions, is to be greatly stirred to faithfulness of 
conduct. 



188 FAITHFULNESS. 

Tins same faithfulness will give us great power with others. 
With this thought I come to the second great relation in which 
she lived, — that of a mother. Children she had many, and as 
they came into her arms she brooded on her duties to them, as 
she had considered her duties as wife. Then she saw with 
rapture that one duty is the kindling of fire for another, and 
that by as much as she had carefully considered what she should 
do as a wife, already she had done much that was her duty as 
a mother. She saw she had but to gather the same cheer, the 
same arts and intellectual life about her little children as they 
grew, and convert all these things into words and instructions 
for them, to do a mother's duty. But one thing beside this she 
added, namely, hospitality. Then she began to open her house 
very warmly to her children's friends, whereby it came to pass 
that there was no place where they loved so much to be as in 
their home, where their friends were welcomed by the mother 
who was their pride as well as joy. 

The third relation into which she had come was that of the 
citizen. She took up her citizen life in the same manner as the 
wife's and the mother's duties. And here indeed did her life 
shine very beautifully by its ideality. All that I have described 
she might have done for herself only, or for her children about 
her, for those ends of life and those opportunities which served 
her own interest and feelings. But if this only had been her 
aim she would not have succeeded so nobly or so completely. 
In one of the old ballads a departing knight says to the lady 
whom he leaves, that she must not grieve at his going forth on 
the errands of a true knight, for, says he, 

"I could not love thee, dear, so well 
Loved I not honor more." 

So if this young woman had not loved the ideal before herself 
and her own most precious possessions, she would have had two 
failures in her own struggles; first, she would not have been 
able so nobly to persevere, because if what she was thinking of 
was herself, and not that high ideal that stays aloft and calls to 
us as a star, then continually she would have been turned aside 
by other solicitations of self-love, so that she would have failed 
in that steady pursuit day by day which was her great power. 



FAITHFULNESS. 189 

Secondly, she never would have had influence on others, because 
wide, inspiring, strengthening power is only to be gotten, as the 
old Chinese sage said, by perfect sincerity which has no shadow 
of self-seeking in it; but having that sincerity, she was inspira- 
tion and strength to all whom she met. Thus from this faithful 
home-life of hers, there began to spread out, especially as her 
children grew, a great wide good through all that community. 
This showed itself specially in her interest in her church in the 
village, into which she went and worked with so much heart and 
soul in spite of her labors as a farmer's wife, as to be a great 
support and cheer to it, and a veritable light and beam in it as 
she had been in her home. There, by her music, she gathered 
all the young people about her, as the community grew, and she 
instructed them in singing, and trained them, and they did 
wonderfully good work. She established a little center for books, 
she taught the need and love of reading, she organized little 
clubs among old and young, and met with them and led them, 
and she brought into the social hfe, even in games, dances and 
plays, a kind of good fellowship, good manners and elevation, 
which began to make that little settlement an abode of refine- 
ment and gentle hfe. 

True is it that if you set your ideal high, you shall have 
great influence. Let your nobility of thought, your height of 
ideal, stand with you in place of power of position or wealth. 
Is Lord Bacon right when he says, " Good thoughts if they be 
accepted by God, yet towards man they are little better than 
good dreams if they be not put into acts, and they cannot be 
unless there be power and place?" No; for good thoughts are 
power and place. The great philosopher thought not of the 
might of humble faithfulness, nor saw how the circles of God 
widen out infinitely. Carlyle calls to us to follow the ideal as 
within ourselves and in our own very circumstances. Why seek 
for it without? " Here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, 
despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or 
nowhere, is thy ideal; work it out therefrom, and, working, be- 
lieve, live, be free." And so says Lowell: " The true ideal is 
not opposed to the real, nor is it any artificial heightening there- 
of, but lies in it; and blessed are the eyes that find it," — to 
know that the true ideal is simply to work nobly, at whatever it 



190 FAITHFULNESS. 

be, and that there is nothing so humble but, with the ideal thus 
worshiped and wrought forth, shall speak with trumpet tongue. 

" No accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world has ever lost." 

During these forty years in which this lowly but prolific 
work was going on, I was growing as I could, twelve hundred 
miles from this woman. What a different lot was mine, by what 
a different path came I at last into her presence ! I lived in a 
sheltered home, was sent to the best schools, educated tenderly 
and carefully, then at last going to college and there carefully 
considered and taught by friends and teachers for three charm- 
ing and memorable years, and then entering the divinity school, 
and even more personally and individually made the care of my 
teachers, and the consideration and solicitous concern of the 
wise, the old, the good, until at last I came forth, and entered 
on my first cares and duties as a minister. For some years I 
worked, till it fell to my lot, with great benefit to myself (as now 
I can see, but not then), to turn aside awhile and plunge into 
business cares. For many years I was a business man, working 
as business men work, doing all manner of business, from the 
counting room to the duties of a salesman, and traveling far 
and wide over this country in my business. At last, by a 
strange meeting of events, just when I was ready to leave my 
business life, thinking I had obtained from it all that I could 
afford the time to obtain, a place opened for me in this great 
West, and now I have been here twelve years nearly, and after 
half that time I came hither to you in Chicago. During one of 
my missionary trips as minister of this church, I went to that 
community where this girl had come as a young wife, and her 
forty years of faithfulness had been harvested, I went to her 
home, I saw her, I beheld the fruits of her life. I saw her 
children with light in their faces, with cultivation in their man- 
ners, with intelligence and beaming ideas in their speech and in 
their eyes. I beheld them lovers of good things, intellectual, 
graceful, beautiful. I saw her work in the community. I beheld 
how all came to her as unto a Mother in Israel, then in old age, 
honored, solicited and loved. I saw that there was hardly any 
good work in that place that was not connected with her. All 



FAITHFULNESS. 191 

works and labors bore her name. I saw that the church still 
rested largely on her heart and sonl. I saw the fruit of her life 
in herself, still the light and fire of an eternal youth in her eye 
and in her manners ; her face deeply wrinkled, and out of every 
one of those various and sanctified traces that life had made, 
out of them all, a light beaming, and the eye undimmed, the 
step still elastic, and a manner that bespoke a heart-interest in 
all the life about her. Still she was singing in the choir, still 
gathering the young about her and leading them in good things 
and especially in the music. I noted, and thought too, as I 
heard the people speak of her, and saw their manner when 
speaking to her, how all this influence had spread out widely. 
I saw that as it was in her circle, so truly each one that was in 
her circle had a circle, and each one in every circle again another 
circle of his own, and that from her thus was spreading out 
virtue, help, inspiration, enlightenment, no one could dream 
how far. And I reflected that there might be many cases un- 
known to me, and surely were, in which the results of this 
woman's steady faithfulness of life had borne other direct, dis- 
tinct, visible fruits; for each man's faithfulness or unfaithful- 
ness holds in its keeping the interests, even the lives of others. 
I saw recently a poor young woman, now in the prime of life 
but broken in back, deformed and bowed, her whole life mined 
externally, whatever her inward fruit of grace, because a nurse 
had been unfaithful in her attendance, and let the little child fall 
on the floor. How many a bank officer, by his unfaithfulness, 
has brought to loss and despair many a poor hard-working man, 
who by years of steady industry and economy, had stored up a 
little deposit of savings, swept away by the officer's unfaithful- 
ness and dishonesty. So in all positions of trust. One reason 
why I undertook this sermon was that I was moved to it by a 
word of one of you, who spoke to me of the terrible fact in a 
late railroad accident, that it had all come about by the absolute 
unfaithfulness of a railroad official, who employed a drunken 
engineer, knowing him to be such. Now, perhaps, if that officer 
of the railroad had been one of the sons of this woman, or of 
such a mother, or had come into one of the circles of influence 
of her humble and faithful life, that accident would not have 
occurred, the lives it cost would have been saved, the sorrows 



192 FAITHFULNESS. 

spared. Besides, who can tell how sometimes such humble fidelity 
finds tongue? It happens that a poet, a prophet, a philosopher, a 
preacher, meets such a hidden angel of God, and he takes the 
lowly faithfulness as his scripture; he knows it is an elder 
scripture, before all the Bibles ; and when he comes to his poem, 
his book, his sermon thereafter, he brings that fidelity, and it is 
his poem, his philosophy, his sermon. When I stood on that 
blooming soil, amid that majestic work, I resolved that some 
time I would tell you the story of this life; wherefore now it 
trembles in the articulations of my voice, and it is not I that 
speak to you, but that faithful life. 

In this life I see clearly what faithfulness is. First, and 
above all, it is a thoughtful consideration of what duty is; it is 
care in thinking, that the duty be set so high that to climb to it 
is worthy of a human soul. Then, secondly, it is doing that 
duty which thus is set above. And thirdly, it is doing all of that 
duty; all; not a part, not what may please us; but as we do the 
duty without thinking of pleasure, so it is doing all the duty, 
that which is most pleasing and that, too, which is hardest, all 
the same, in pure faithfulness. Finally, faithfulness is doing all 
the duty every time, unceasing, day by day; as the water drips, so 
the drops of duty falling on the soil beneath, until it blooms 
indeed. As " by every drop of sweat that falls into the furrow, 
the farmer reaps a spear of golden grain, or plucks the bene- 
diction of a flower," so it is this dropping of duty daily that 
covers the soil with moral and spiritual bloom; but only if 
daily it come, if it never falter, if it be steady day by day, pure 
duty, heavenly faithfulness. 

" Faithful unto death," is my text; only that is faithfulness. 
It is told of Jesus that he was faithful to the end. What can be 
said grander of any life than that it is faithful to the end? It 
is this that is the test. Ah, it is easy to do some one great 
achievement. There never lived a man who at some time could not 
tower up to some big thing ; but they are few, perhaps, who 
day by day bear the strain of the lowly, unseen, unpraised duty, 
and every day do it. That is faithfulness; and truly it is divine. 
The Hindoos have a saying, that if you are building a mountain, 
with a basket to carry the earth onto the plain, and you ha/e 
towered up that mountain, and lifted it until it needs but one 



FAITHFULNESS. 193 

more basket of earth for the peak, and you carry not up that 
basket, you have not made your mountain ; but if you have put 
but one basket of earth on the plain, and are bringing another, 
you are building a mountain. This is faithfulness, this steady, 
unwearying truthfulness of labor to the end. 

I learn from this life, too, that faithfulness is the true 
greatness. I tell you I stand with such a reverence before such 
a lowly faithfulness as no other greatness of human attainment 
wrings from me. I can remember, and it is not many years 
back, when I stood with a kind of wonder, struck dumb, before 
the achievements of a magnificent Caesar, a Lord Bacon, Shakes- 
peare, Eschylus, Homer, I care not whcm; I know nuw, with all 
propriety of reverence that I must feel for grand powers, and 
especially for grand powers grandly applied, as with Homer and 
Shakespeare, still that to stand agape at them, as if theirs was the 
human greatness most godlike, was after all a kind of savage 
wonder and barbarian admiration, while before me, right around 
me, in humble goodness day by day done, I was looking on the 
very face of divinity, or could have looked on it; and now I 
humbly trust I have learned to see the countenance of God 
more, and to know that it looks straight forth from this real 
greatness of day-by-day faithfulness in lowly places. 

Here stand I with this peculiar elevation of the pulpit to 
speak to you, and you listen to me in a manner that to me never 
ceases to be infinitely touching and humbling. And you come 
to me, some of you sometimes, with great praise for my speech; 
and then I feel more humbled, sometimes even struck all but to 
the ground with a sense of iniquity, almost I might say, in 
being the momentary occasion of your passing over the real 
glories of life to praise only those which from a conspicuous 
position shine. What is my speech to-day, what were it if it 
had all the power of a Shakespeare's words, all the majesty of 
Homir, the grandeur and solemnity of ^Eschylus, the grace of 
Virgil, compared with the godlike beauty and grandeur of that 
lowly, unnamed, uncelebrated life, that hath in it the substance 
of these poor words? Truly, not to be named;. truly, but the 
garments of a great, divinely made body. 

Says Amiel in his Journal, " The errand woman has just 
brought me my letters. Poor little woman, what a life! She 



194 FAITHFULNESS. 

spends her nights in going backward and forward from her 
invalid husband to her sister, who is scarcely less helpless, and 
her days are passed in labor. Eesigned and indefatigable, she 
goes on without conrplaining, till she drops. Lives such as hers 
prove something; that the true ignorance is moral ignorance, 
and that classification according to a greater or less degree of 
folly is inferior to that which proceeds according to a greater or 
less degree of virtue. The kingdom of God belongs not to the 
most enlightened, but to the best ; and the best man is the most 
unselfish man. Humble, constant, voluntary, self-sacrifice, — 
this is what constitutes the true dignity of man. And, there- 
fore, it is written, ' The last shall be first.' Society rests on 
conscience and not on science. Civilization is first and foremost 
a moral thing. Without honesty, without respect for law, with- 
out the worship of duty, without the love of one'e neighbors, in 
a word, without virtue, the whole is menaced and falls into de- 
cay; and neither letters nor art, neither luxury nor industry, nor 
rhetoric, nor the policeman, nor the custom-house officer, can 
maintain erect and whole an edifice of which the foundations 
are unsound. * * * * Duty is what upholds all. So that 
those who humbly and unobtrusively fullfill it, and set a good 
example thereby, are the salvation and the sustenance of this 
brilliant world, which knows naught of them." 

A late noble discourse says: " They have just erected a 
monument to Bruno, in Kome, on the site where amid the ter- 
rors of the auto-da-fe, his brave, serene soul stood unflinching 
witness to the eternal truth. * * * I could not think of 
committing the sacrilege of tendering pity to such a one as 
Bruno. * * * Nor is the late monument, erected amid the 
huzzas of an admiring world, any adequate compensation of 
what he suffered. Nor is it a compensation that Descartes and 
Kant and Hegel and Goethe have sat at his feet and called him 
master. He had other compensations, of a far higher order and 
of indestructible value. He needs no pity, for he conquered the 
world and appropriated all the good there is to be had in it as he 
went along. That fearless heroism in the search of truth was in 
itself the wealth of the Universe. * * * It may not be [such] a 
loud voice that speaks to you in the name of the eternal 
I ought. It will not be a voice summoning you to rally an army or 



FAITHFULNESS. 195 

to take your life in your hand and stand against the shock of some 
impending crisis. It will, perhaps, be no more than a still, 
small voice laying upon you the duty of a manly honesty, of as- 
serting the liberty of your own soul, of stepping quietly into a 
path of truth in which you will be neither persecuted nor fol- 
lowed. What it says to you, what poor, humble drudgery of 
self-denial it imposes upon yon, is of little consequence, an atom 
in the world struggle, no more. What is of supreme concern to 
realize is this, that it is the same voice that Bruno heard, and 
that it has the same living relation to your moral history that 
it had to his, and means through your sweeter liberty and 
clearer truth, to affect the moral history of mankind. If a 
grander manhood and a grander life are to come to the world, 
your heroism in your little obscure world, means help to pre- 
pare the way."* 

* C. F. Bradley, in Unity, Feb. 15. 1800. 



"0 GOD!" 

—The Psalms. 

" God!" is the cry of humanity. It is the cry that has as 
many meanings as human needs are many, for there is no need 
but cries aloud " God" at some time. For every real need 
within us (I speak not of wishes, which may he vain or foolish, or 
vagrant or impious, but of needs) may become a joy, having a 
great and blessed satisfaction pertaining to it, and then it cries 
or chants or sings to God like Nature's sounds when the morning 
seems ahVe with thanksgiving audit is so beautiful to live. Or 
a need may be pain, a very anguish, a cry that is no voluntary 
offering, but unwilled; by terrible strain or holy passion, or 
wild passion, wrung from us; and then the cry is unto him, 
" God!" for help and healing and comprehension. 

It is to God, the Giver, the Helper, the Healer, that we cry. 

There are three places or junctures, halting places I may 
say, or crises in life, where we may come to such a pass as no 
language will utter nor any kin- sympathy measure. These are 
joy, sorrow, moral failure. 

Of joy I know not what to say but that it is unspeakable 
above all things. Pleasures, delights, charms, may be told; but 
when the soul is full of joy, and running over, that is far dif- 
ferent, and more. Joy has a very deep sense. It is far out of 
sight within. It may be scanned in some of its signs or out- 
ward features, but it has few of these beyond a simple lovely or 
gentle peace. Joy makes no gestures, laughs not, shouts not 
nor is noisy in any way, nor dances nor runs about, nor throws 
frisky antics. Pleasure does these things. But joy is still, deep, 
heavenly, full of light but not scattering sparks. How can it 
speak its silence, ics fullness? I have tried to listen with my 
ear close to a soul of joy, but I could never hear that it could 
speak much. I think that joy is more tongue-tied than sor- 



198 "O GOD!" 

row. Yes, sorrow is more to be told than joy; it is easier to 
utter grief than to bring joy to the ear. I can think of naught 
so unutterable as great joy; yea, and I am sure in my soul that 
joys are greater than griefs. Blessed be the Father that it is so! 
There is no sorrow in all the world so great as joy may be great, 
yea, and is great in this blessed day-life of ours, if we will know 
it and have it so. And this, mayhap, is the reason why joy is 
more unspeakable than pain or sorrow, namely, that it is so 
much greater, so far more spacious, not so much to be compassed 
by words. This, to my eyes, is very blessed, that joy has such 
vantage and is of all things the least to be told or unrolled to 
another because it is so great, so vast, so like God, who sorrows 
not, but joys. When such a bliss is on us, when joy thus 
inhabits us, how can the heart cry out, how can it leap from its 
dumbness, how can it find any speech for the joy? The heavens 
are full of light, the earth of life; the horizon is a circle of love, 
increase, coming forth, return into the soul. Growth, radi- 
ance, devotion, all the riches of life like golden showers from the 
sky and vapors of pearl from the earth, — all these come enter- 
ing in and bending over us. What speech is there, what lan- 
guage, yea, but one word, that shall unfold this joy? Then we 
cry unto the Source, the Giver, " God!" 

The exclaiming " God!" in joys, is a very great deepen- 
ing of the joy; but also it is very natural, and we are made to 
have very deep joys, and to sound the depths of the best and to 
bring them home to God. For how precious it is to be given 
what we have. And if we earn it, still to receive it from hands 
of love sweetens the gift, heightens the boon. To be swarmed 
on by pleasures as if by chance, as if they fell prone around us 
and were not given or brought to us, surely, this were to have 
little joy with them; but if we have them from a hand, how 
then they are handled by ourselves as things touched 
before and shaped from a hand, and from a hand put 
into our hand, and full of infinite worth and fellowship, 
of the meaning of love, of the presence of life. So it is 
when, having had joys, when seeming to find them by the way- 
side or to labor them into being, we know that we have not found 
them ; no, nor made them, but that we have received them, when 
we have walked far enough or when we have worked well — not 



"O GOD!" 199 

to get the joy for ourselves, or we shall not get, but in sacrifice 
religiously, or for some other person's joy — received them, and we 
stand struck with light, and the floodgates of the heart open as 
in a morning, forth-pouring the cry " God!" Then is joy great, 
heavenly, very full of purity and of ecstacy, and afterward of 
peace and of everlastingness, when we know it is given us by 
the Giver and is of him and in his being and his presence, and 
that it hath become ours, not ceasing to be his. What a cry of 
joy and in a joy is that " God!" 

But the need that cries may be a heart-wringing need, 
unsatisfied, tearing up the stones of the heart's cloisters, full 
of pain and terror and lone sorrows. Then riseth the 
same cry, " God!" 'Tis the cry for the Helper. Oh what a 
human cry is that! How it issues and sounds and sounds back 
everywhere! The Helper! Who has not need of help? Who 
feels strong enough? Or who, if he feel sufficient, is not there- 
by the weakest of all? But there is strength, though we be not 
strong! There is glory and eternity, though we be weak and 
perishing — the Helper! And the cry is unto him, " God!" 

Sorrow may be spoken better and told more than joy, and 
brought forth by ease of words. And yet but little. Even 
the open sorrows, the griefs which we need not cover or must 
lay open, the disappointments and losses, privations, hopes 
deferred, despairing toils, loneliness, desertion, friends faithless, 
hard, cruel — all these which show themselves plainly and come 
into broad light, are not told easily, and but little can be 
spoken. More than great joys, and yet but little. And there 
are very great and noble, heavenly, sorrows which almost match 
joys for their dumbness. Yes, even the open sorrows, to be 
seen of all eyes, must be known by discernment most, by words 
least. But also there are secret sorrows, the worst and hardest, 
which we must not try to utter; nay, they become harder, and 
weigh heavily the more, if we so much as think to speak 
them. We are forbidden sympathy in them. We must 
keep them in our hearts alone. 'Tis for the good of the 
soul and of the world that we should hide them. And if for- 
cibly and with a kind of impiety we speak these griefs, not only 
do they weigh the worse of themselves, but others will pack 
them hard on us; for 'tis little like that we shall find good and 



200 "O GOD!" 

safe ears for an impious confidence; no, but bad ears, half- 
friendly, faithless and cruel, or selfish, vain, jealous, wanton. 
Thus if against nature we bewail aloud the sorrows which nature 
bids us hug in secret, we are punished twice, for the woes are the 
heavier, and the persons on whom we cast ourselves will be like 
to throw us down and rend us. So that because the most open 
sorrows can be spoken but little at most, and the secret sorrows 
must not be told, grief can have but little voice, sorrows must be 
very silent, and approach to the unspeakableness of heavenly 
joy. When they come trooping on us, very many, or when one 
comes like a wave that seems the whole ocean bulging and over- 
running, when the eyes stream like blind fountains, seeing not 
theJight into which their showers push, and the ears are rent 
like a drum overbeaten, light gone, noon darkened, sounds dead 
or concords untuned, griefs flying in the soundless darkness like 
bats, pains and frights and losses entangling with us, what 
can we cry? What speech or language? Only His name who 
saitli "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people;" yea, and giveth the 
power of comfort. For never did one say " God!" but he 
knew that he had told his secret to the ear of love, and his 
faith was made quick, and 

" The very thinking of the thought, 

Without or praise or prayer, 
Gave light to knovr and life to do, 

And marvelous strength to bear." 

It is great help to look above, to look upward, to turn us by 
vision, even by strain of vision, above ourselves and above the 
world, far overall. Only to look up higher — what help! Even 
if it be only a little higher! Still 'tis great help. To look at 
the next place above us, though but a step, a little climb, still is 
to look up ; and this is help. And if we look to the next place 
above us, to the small height over our heads, soon we shall look 
above that even before we reach it, and soon look only above 
and above, making no comparisons, but only uplooking. And 
this uplook is an " God!" At some great joy of inspiration, 
of sight, of hope, yes, or of rest after tossing and toil, the lips 
speak what the eye hath looked. We cry " God!" to the 
Helper, being helped, because it is help to look above or up, and 
we cry out with the sense of help, strength, almightiness. 



"O GOD!" 201 

Now, if we be on some height and look up to another height, 
we see the sky beyond that height; or if it be shut away by 
some roof or overhanging thing in the height, when we have 
gone thither, if only we keep the up-look, there at last is the 
sky. So it is with the spiritual heavens. "We look up into the 
Helper's presence and power; we turn us to the Infinite and 
look into infinite Presence. I know not but then all sense of 
looking up must be gone; it is fled; it has no meaning now. 
Surely it must be so if the eye that was looking is caught and 
carried and held so high, so purely in that sky which hath come 
overhead, that the earth hath gone as an earth, seen only as 
it may look from a star in the infinite heaven, as far away on 
one hand as any star is far away opposite, and all the lights of 
heaven equal, far and near and alike, and no below or above, but 
we looking at the Infinite by being embosomed in the Infinite. 
This is great help. By this we turn to the Helper. In all the 
transitory, the passing, the growing and decaying and dying, 
the striving and mounting and falling, the heights and counter- 
heights, " God! "*is the cry for the Infinite, the Immutable — 
u deep unto deep " — the cry unto God which signifieth God, the 
infinitely finite unto the One who is all and includeth the finite. 
Great help and power this is, in whatever need, and whether 
the crisis be lightened unto joys or be darkened into pains, — 
great help, to know and think and live in the Infinite, the Eter- 
nal, the Almighty, to be in this thought, to walk so in it that 
we shall cleave to it or know it in such way as Epictetus taught. 
" Think of God oftener than you breathe, " said he; which is to 
say, " Think of him as much as you live ;" which is another 
mode of Paul's saying that we live and move and have being 
in him. When was it not help and peace and power to come 
home? But to think of the Infinite and Eternal is to come home, 
where we live and have being. 

We must go to the Helper again, by as much as we are weak. 
And how weak we are! What little strength is our best strength! 
What slender availing! What close and hard honds! What 
limitations! How short a way we can go! How little do! I 
speak not now of moral weakness — of that hereafter. Nay, and 
I speak not of feebleness of will, which often is an element of 
un-morality; and strength of will is not a virtue always, but may 



202 "O GOD!" 

be mere stubbornness — an uncomely thing. But even stubborn- 
ness — how weak it is! How little it can do! What a short 
tether to it! Try as we will, and cling to the effort, yet our 
strength may be but as a babe's. We may wrestle like a giant 
with the winds and waves and with fire, but they whirl and toss 
and drown and burn us, and hustle us away or crumble or evap- 
orate us. We can lift but little weights; yea, if 1000 pounds, 
what is it? We can not build mountains nor drain seas nor 
raise islands nor sink continents. We can pound and shape 
and build a little, plant, reap and store a little — that is all. 
And what can we do against the might of nature in her wraths, 
her awful poisons, her pestilences, her fevers and sores and 
wastings, when once let loose and fallen on us. A little seed, a 
pebble, an atom, a grain, a drop will kill us. 

"Dost thou dream that thou art free, 
Making and forming all that thou dost see 
In the unfettered might of thy soul's liberty? 
Lo ! one nerve tortures and maddens thee ! 
One drop of blood is death to thee !" 

Oh, yes! Let the will be mighty, and will as it will and 
never give up ; but the arms are short and the hands small and 
the bones brittle and the back bending. We are very weak, and 
" when the elements are at their horse-play," we are a mere toss 
to them. 'Tis in such insufficiency that we cry to the Helper. 
Then we cry, "0 God!" We are weak, but we know there is 
strength. We faint or fail or are torn or tortured or die — we 
can not stand. But there is strength. What help to think 
of that! What substance for us! What peace and 
power! 'Tis psalm and song then to cry it aloud — not a 
cry of despair that we are weak, but of glory and joy that 
while we strive we know He is strong — stronger than we, 
and then all-strong, almighty, fainting not nor tiring nor 
variable nor having a shadow of turning! O, it is from a deep 
calm of our own bonds, a peace and quiet of fragility, a will- 
ingness of rest and submission, an acceptance of insufficiency, a 
piety of abiding in what we can not do, a very camp and tabernacle 
of waiting, a sweet humility, yes, and a glorying in our sight 
that beholds power, that 'knows strength, that sees perfect suf- 
ficiency and views the stream of all things moving in obedience, 



"O GOD!" 203 

— 'tis from all this that unto strength of strength and power of 
power and glory of glory we look up and say " God!" 

And yet can a mere nothing be made somewhat? Shall 
impotence he fed and nourished? No. " To him who hath 
shall be given." 'Tis only because we have somewhat that we 
shall have more; because we have vast store, might, riches, that 
we can think of Infinite Strength, of Perfectness. 'Tis true the 
human body is weak, unarmed, unclad, delicate in digestion • yet, 
too, what strength, endurance, store of postures and motions, 
what fine health possible, what beauty and glow of health, what 
old age! It is our duty to be strong, to nourish the body and 
venerate it. Also, what might of will is in us ! And with this 
what apprehension, what power of mind ! We are unarmed 
because we need no claws and fangs, having reason, mathe- 
matics, invention. A sense of power, of vast range, of illimit- 
able visions, of grand things to be done and of strength in men 
to do them, of beauty yet undreamed, of human triumphs not 
conceived, yea, and of power in one's sole self till we be seized 
with an immense faith to dare, to put forth effort, to trust our- 
selves, verily to stamp on the| earth like Galileo, rapt with sight, 
with discovery, with rythmical harmonies, — these feeling rush 
over us at moments, 

" Through life and death, through fate, through time, 
Grand breaths of God that sweep sublime." 

And they so lift up the head, and the sense of power so 
elevates the whole soul, that for joy, for wonder, for unbounded 
impulse, we cry aloud, " God!" 

In moral weakness, in sad failures, sins, — the worst sor- 
rows — in rash passions, imgoverned desires when comes the 
shame of not being obeyed by ourselves, after pleasures that 
leave stings and reproaches, in furies and rages, in jealousies, 
envyings, hardness of heart, lies and frauds — oh what need, 
bitter need of the Helper! These evils come debating with us, 
calling with tones that a little distance makes seem sweet though 
afterward they are horrible in the ear. 'Tis but human to 
stagger sometimes in some of these dire tremblings. Even 
though we fall not, we shake. In the nip of temptation, in 
enticements, gildings, solicitings, ridicule, — then wavering, 
swaying, shaking, wrestling, we cry " God! " Was ever that 



204 "O GOD!" 

■ 

cry raised without answer? Did ever any man go to his knees 
but he was stronger? We are safe while we pray, saying " God !" 
No other words, no art, no confessions, entreaties, no history of 
our need, of past falls, of present threatenings, — not these. 
Only " God! " 'Tis the cry of the soul! Oh how often raised 
out of these terrible depths ! For the dark pits are not like to the 
soul, and looking up the spirit catches a gleam of the sky like 
to itself, and cries " God!" And when repentance has done its 
work, and we have left the evils, still we cry ■ for we shall never 
get away from the shadows of those ill deeds. They stretch 
after us. "Our sins," it has been said, "like to our shadows 
when our day is in its glory, scarce appeared. Toward our even- 
ing how great and monstrous they are." Yea, they hasten down 
life's hill in front of us, when the Sun of youth is far and low 
behind — regrets, pangs of shame, repentances of cruelties and 
faithlessness when now it is too late to do the good that in its 
day we would not. What can we do? What shall we cry? 
Whither betake us? What help? What comfort? " God! " 
The cry of the soul is speech to God, but not speech of 
him; and this is to be noted with care, for the two are very dif- 
ferent. To speak to him is easy, yes, and very natural. Did ever 
any man live who spoke not to God? The untutored, the simple, 
the primitive, the wild man speaks to him continually. And if 
a man be very learned and wise, perhaps he speaks to him the 
more, though very differently; yea, if a man be much instructed, 
have learned great things, be full of arts and sciences and riches, 
have his hands full of the earth's good things and live in places 
much adorned and covered with ease and beautiful things, and 
if he be full of power and quiet as the wild man is full of alarms 
and weakness, and if he be full of knowledge and discoveries 
and reasons as the wild man is full of fancies, stories and 
pictures, still he speaks to God. For what mean those sudden 
outcries, those appeals, those ejaculations, those forth-throwings 
of fear or hope or sorrow or astonishment, those mighty prayers 
pressed into one word, those speakings of that one name in an 
extremity when the man cries " God, 0! God! " — what are these 
but the speaking to him in those crises, those extreme moments 
when a man most is himself because he forgets himself? 
Yes, 'tis easy to speak to him; nay, 'tis not to be avoided; none 



"O GOD!" 205 

can withstand. Some extremity will seize you and hurl you to 
that ground of speech, be you as strong or as weak, as wise 
or as simple, as learned or as ignorant, as wild or as tamed as 
you may. A man will be gripped in the talons of a pang or a 
need or a terror or a wonder and awe, and cry " God! " — not 
thinking but speaking as he is and crying out what is in him! 
So easy is it to speak to God, and not to be escaped. 

But to speak of him — who can do that? Speech is but thought 
moving from one thing to another and perceiving what one is like 
another and in what they are alike. And of these things speech can 
speak, and of their unity or likeness or sameness, and of the 
laws of them which their likenesses are. But speech cannot speak 
of God, for he is the One in all. All things come to one in 
him; and so there is no quality, no likeness and no differ- 
ence which is not of him; and what speech can compass all 
qualities and kinds and materials and natures and infinity of 
beings and infinity of likenesses and unities and differences and 
divisions? Wherefore let speech go so far as it will, or so far as 
it can, how far can it? How far has it gone? No distance, 
nay, not a step, but only a stumble. If one were to speak for- 
ever, and every word were utter truth, in itself utter truth, yet 
alone each word would be naught, nay, with a multitude it would 
be naught, and without the infinity of them it would be naught 
as to God, being only just a particle or many particles, in itself, 
or with others, but naught as to God — just as one breath, or ten 
thousands, or myriads, are but breaths and not the atmosphere. 
Speak of God, if we dare try, as much as we will or can, and 
say all that we can come at to say, all we can sink into or soar 
up to, and still there is more to be said, and so much more that 
we are as if judging of a sea by its margin; and, however we 
sail off still we are but a little way out from the coast and the 
sea infinite beyond; and we have left him unsaid; we can not 
speak of him. If we try to tell of him, not only speech fails, 
but thought flies, mind leaves us; which is to say that we die, 
we become naught, for what are we but thought, and what is left 
if thought be fled? 'Tis so I would interpret the Scripture, 
" Thou canst not see God and live." When we try to behold, to 
scan, to tell, thought faints, and thought is life, the life of us, 
that flees from the seeing of God. 



206 "O GOD!" 

But by as much as we can not speak of God, we can speak 
to him. 'Tis the same with a man. You shall speak to me, 
lover of me, and know! But you shall not speak of me and 
know! You cannot tell of me, you can not describe me, nor go 
round me, nor picture me, nor conceive me in any way or shape. 
How then canst thou tell of God unto me? Nay, thou mayest 
speak to thyself and hold communion, thought with thought, within 
thee, and all thoughts with thyself, past all knowledge and won- 
der and awe; but thou shalt not conceive thyself, nor tell of thy- 
self, nor describe nor draw any line about thee. How then canst 
thou tell of God to thyself, how canst thou speak of him? 

Yet thou wilt speak to him, and every one will speak to him; 
thou must ; thou wilt cry out, in all the great things of thyself, 
in mighty feelings or extremities, wherein thou canst not speak 
of thyself nor of him, thou wilt cry out " God!" and speak 
unto him! 

Here is awe and ease together! Here is Nature and Infin- 
ity! Here is mystery; but mystery is knowledge. Yea, we live 
in mystery, in so great mystery as can not be told. Sir Thomas 
Browne liked to lose himself in an "0 altitudu!" height! 
heavenly height! soaring flight of soul where no wing can 
go, no, not the eagle wing of thought! height above the sun 
and stars! Above all things but just the soul's own proper and 
joyful hardihood of wing! But this mystery, this height, is not 
uttered when we say that we know not what is in the height, or 
what the height is, or that we can not know, or that there is 
somewhat which is not to be known, the unknowable. For 
ignorance is not mystery. Mystery so lives that it is be- 
fore us like a spiritual being; but ignorance is simply 
naught — nothingness. If we be all ignorant of anything, then 
we know it not, even so much as to know our knowing it not. 
It has not part with us; it exists not to us. But mystery is a 
knowledge. 'Tis the margin of our being, where we are of God; 
nay, it is the thought that we have no circumscription or arc on 
one side of which is God and on the other ourselves. Mystery is 
the knowledge that this can not be so, but that we live and move 
and have our being in him. Is this mystery? Yes; but it is 
knowledge. For how could we live and move and have our 
being out of him? This is truth, that we know we are in him; 



"O GOD!" 207 

mystery is this unspeakable knowledge. But if we lived and 
had being out of him, then we should know it not, that we were out 
of him, for then we should know naught of him, nor have 
the thought of him. This were ignorance, like as we may 
suppose the animals are in, at least the lower animals and 
the plants. But mystery is the great knowledge, the un- 
speakable knowledge, that we abide in him, that all 
creatures live by one life, and abide in that life, and the 
life in them. Wherefore, though I know not how to speak of 
this mystery, 'tis not because of ignorance but because of un- 
speakable knowledge; yea, and past all measuring or fencing by 
thought as well as by speach, and beyond all imagination; and 
not proper to imagination, which deals with shapes, pictures, 
numbers of things. But language is but one way of laying hold 
of aught, as the hands, the eyes, the ears, and other senses, are 
other implements for laying hold ; and thought again is but a 
means or tendril or stretched-out antenna for laying hold. But 
if hands and eyes and other powers can not lay hold of all things, 
'tis no wonder, but only natural and similar, that language can 
not grip all things, or the All, with its ten thousand tenacles of 
words, however they stretch forth, nor that thought cannot 
enwrap and lay hold of the All, howsoever it spreads like a fine 
vapor to engulf the sky ; nor that imagination goes not far nor 
lays hold, which can but hew lines in things, and make joints 
and match them together. But though the mystery be past 
wording or syllogizing or picturing, 'tis knowledge within us 
and not ignorance ; and we live by the rapture and the depth — 
past all sounding by any lines — and the joy and power of that 
knowledge. Oh how warm and living is that knowledge, — nay, 
not so much living as life! How dear and cleaving im to us, 
and we to it, is that mystery! What love and joy! What peace 
and quiet! What strength, glory, light! 

We come forth, we issue upon this earth, we are gathered 
from all the atoms. Who knoweth how? By what concourse 
are the atoms assembled to form us? How are they guided to 
our shape? What is the quickening of us? By what way doth 
one element lay hold of another and how cometh their need of 
one another, and how acts one so as to bid the other arise and 
set out growing forthwith and the other so as to be bidden and 



208 "O GOD!" 

to obey and to begin to grow and call the atoms to itself and lay 
them in the shape of the image which is to be made? How are 
these things? Nay, this is darkness; we cannot answer; it is 
our ignorance ; we know not how. But the mystery is that we 
come forth. This is knowledge. What great joyful knowledge, 
that now no one sees us and again a little while and we have 
come forth and are here, and are seen, and soon have the knowl- 
edge that we have come hither, and dwell in this mystery. 
When we question of the way and manner, and how this part to 
that was matched and made, and arose, then we are looking at 
one part and at another, and our ignorance is very blinding. 
But when we look not at the parts, where our ignorance lies, 
but at the whole, at the one knowledge and mystery that hither 
we come and here we are, then we know ourselves, then we are 
with the mystery, then Ave cry "0 God!" and are very blest 
and joyful. 

Thus the mystery goes with us, the knowledge that we are 
here; and the mystery grows as we know daily our joy, 
strength, actions, loving, delighting, working, praying, — all of 
them knowledges, mysteries. Can aught be greater mystery 
than every moment of our strength? Yea, what knowledge! 
What bliss of strength ! What knowledge of it ! What joy of 
mystery ! What holy presence ! What assurance of fact of life 
— that we grow strong, that we |have power, majesty, might. 
When these mysteries arise — nay, all together only one mys- 
tery — and the soul swells, the heart beats with life, again 
knowledge grows and mystery is full. We cry " God! " and 
are filled with joy. 

Then at last we go away. Who can tell how? Why move 
the atoms away from us that before trooped to wait on us? 
Why seize us and gnaw us and tear the body to pieces the atoms 
that before were held at bay? Why acts not the will on its 
quick nerves? Why has sense shut her five windows? Nay, 
but this is onr ignorance? Shall we answer sometime? Shall 
we tell how these things are, and why they do so and not other- 
wise? Who can say? But our knowledge and the mystery is 
that we go; that having come, we stay not, but go. When we 
behold this, and are full of this knowledge, and see that it is the 
same knowledge with that of our coming hither, and that it is 



"O GOD!" 209 

by the same power and law and love that we come and go, we 
look on it till it shines unto us, and we cry again, " God!" 

So looks the eye of the soul! So speaks and cries its 
tongue, speaking not much of God, lest it be struck dumb, but 
evermore to him by the faith of need. 

I like those words of St. Bernard, — 
" "Why do my eyes hehold the heavens. 
And not my feet'? 

Because my eyes more than my feet 
Are like the heavens." 

'Tis like to like and same to same, 
'Tis light to light, love unto love, 
Ever doth sweep, — 
Praying and hearing, deep unto deep, 
From below, from above. 

Is it the eye doth rise to the heavens 
Because 'tis like the stars in the sky 
From end to end? 

Yea, but as much the heavens descend 
To meet the eye. 

I know not, Father, what is low - 
Or high, first, last, above, below ; 
Only that me 

Thou namest with my name for thee— 
'Tis all I know. 



A "CUBE-ALL." 

I have called this sermon a " cure-all, " which medically is 
a suspicious name. A remedy may be distrusted which prom- 
ises to cure everything, for usually, then, it is specially adapted 
to nothing. It is the mountebank in medicine who claims to 
have some one potion which will drive away all " the ills that 
flesh is heir to," or cure some sickness under all conditions. If 
it be a true conclusion, and plain, " The better health, the less 
physic," I am sure that very often it is true conversely, " The 
less physic, the better health." As all things of human interest 
properly treated may find a place in the pulpit, perhaps it would 
be not amiss to make a discourse some time on the impropriety, 
not to say immorality, of using nostrums and quack medicines. 
But all use of drugs should be with reserve and tender conscience. 
Dryden has mention of a man who, being in good health, 
lodged himself in a physician's house, and there was persuaded 
by his landlord to take physic, of which he died. It is certainly 
true, as Addison says, that " all these inward applications which 
are so much in practice among us, are for the most part nothing 
else but expedients to make luxury consistent with health." I 
lived myself once for a long time in the house of a person whose 
whole existence was a process of eating himself sick, and dosing 
himself well. 

Nevertheless, it is the purpose of this discourse to set forth 
a cure-all for the little moral plagues that infest society. I 
have a recipe which it is my purpose to give you, by which 
truly all the fogs or swarms of little evils that make life some- 
times such a wearisome way, may be abated wonderfully, and 
all the moral portion of these ills be destroyed altogether. Note 
carefully that I speak of the small evils, which take continually 
their noxious flight from man to man and from group to group, 



212 A •' CURE- ALL." 

like little buzzing insect pests in a summer night. There are 
many great evils, including the bold crimes against social order, 
crimes of violence against life or property, which follow vast 
general ills and increase or decrease in the wake of war or 
famine, or riots, or industrial disorders of any sort. Also, 
there are great and persistent evils of the gross or violent kind, 
which spring from the tainted blood of a bad or criminal parent- 
age, or from that vast hereditary impulse in which the whole of 
society shares and struggles, the survival, namely, of a certain 
underlying savageness, not yet extinct, derived from our remote 
barbarous ancestry. It will be a long time before we escape 
from the past, even as now it is; and unto the future this pres- 
ent moment is becoming the past. It behooves us to consider, 
therefore, as daily we go on, what ethical type and moral trans- 
mission we are storing for the future. Many violent evils are 
reversions to the savage type for a time, under the stimulus of 
circumstances which are like the ancient savage conditions. Of 
course the class infected with such ills as these may not be able 
to apply the recipe which I shall give you. It is beyond the 
power of the moral stage in which they are. They are too sick. 
I claim not for my recipe that it will cure absolutely everything, — 
especially, instances of violent disease. Such ills and the people 
in whom they survive must struggle along, and others must 
struggle with them, waiting for the slow process of develop- 
ment or civilization, which by long and delicate correctives, 
albeit with many pauses, many mutations and much surgical 
infliction, at last brings to pass redemption and health, refine- 
ment and moral life. 

Nevertheless, my recipe is not worthless on this account. 
It is well to have a cure for light diseases. There are hosts of 
little ills and small wrongs which plague society, and infect it 
with painful distempers, because though so small they are so 
many, and even so base, — poisonous vapors from bogs of envy, 
hatred, selfishness, revengefulness, pride, presumptuousness, 
conceit, insolence. These base little vices vary here and there, 
in this or that town or village, hamlet, church or house, with the 
influence of good or bad individuals. Sometimes even one man 
of high virtue, not austere, but genial, and yet surrounded with a 
high and rare atmosphere, both of freedom and of purity, which 



A" CURE-ALL." 213 

floats no coarse things, will charm away these petty but prolific 
ills from a whole community. The belief in this power was 
one of the great charms and .means of influence of the Chinese 
sage, Confucius. Once when wearied with his disappointments, 
his exclusion and lack of success, he thought he would go away 
and hide himself in the company of the wild tribes of the East. 
One of his disciples said to him, " But how can you do that? 
They are rude people." The Master answered, ll If a superior 
man dwelt among them, what rudeness would there be?" A 
friend told me once of a little New England village where the 
visitor would notice instantly an uncommon appearance of tidy 
comfort, peace and thrift, unlike the adjacent towns. The door 
yards were comely with grass and flowers, all the porticoes well 
swept, all the barnyards trim and cleanly, all the fruit-bearing 
trees well pruned, all the fences mended and walls whitened, all 
the houses neatly painted and " roses dotting the door lat- 
tices," all the streets well made, and bountiful shade trees grow- 
ing along the highway. An air of industry, gentleness and 
self-respect pervaded the whole place. And this marked char- 
acter, my friend assured me, was all due to one man, a humble 
minister in the little hamlet, who had stayed calmly with the 
villagers for many years until his head had grown silvery in 
their service. He had won the confiding love of every soul 
dwelling there, till gradually, by wise advice, patient exhortation, 
sympathetic encouragement, good example, and by that kind of 
effluence from himself which Confucius dwelt on, he had brought 
the whole village into the image of his own clean life. And if 
so the houses, barns and fences marched like a little army white 
uniformed for a holiday at his command, surely they who dwelt 
therein must have felt and followed that same gentle influence 
in their hearts, to the outcome of a peace, sincerity, kindness and 
justice whiter than all the fences, more fruitful than all the vines. 
Well, I say I have a recipe for wholly extinguishing all those 
petty ills, those little moral evils and common wrongs of life, 
which depend largely on individual influence in small commu- 
nities, or even in the many social circles of large places, and in 
the wider relations of business, manufacture, trade, finances; 
such evils as slander, scandal, gossip, all forms of over-reach- 
ing, injustice in word or deed, revenge, unkindness, deceit, 



214 A " CURE-ALL." 

hatred, spite, presumption, and the base acts that follow such 
feelings. Very likely you may say to me, — Even granting be- 
fore we hear it that this recipe be of such wonderful virtue in 
itself, still very likely it requires so much strength to apply it, or 
so much skill that it is useless j as if we had a medicine of rare 
and great efficacy, held in a crystal flagon so heavy that neither 
the sick man nor his nurse could raise it to the sufferer's mouth. 
I have a story that some travelers went far into foreign 
countries, and when they returned they brought account of two 
things that were very marvelous, in a certain far-off place they 
had visited. One was a kind of adamant which was so hard 
that nothing could break or shatter it, although the inhabitants 
had secret methods of working it; and the other was a certain 
medicine which was indeed a cure-all, so that the favored com- 
munity was wholly free from all bodily ailments. When the 
travelers had reported this, the people to whom they returned, 
forthwith sent to the fortunate country, requesting that the 
medicine be forwarded to them. And so indeed it was, and in 
due time arrived ; but it came enclosed in a piece of the adamant ? 

However, this is not a sound objection, because my recipe 
requires not that anything be done, only that a certain effort be 
made. If I were to say to you, In order to put to flight this 
brood of evils, you must gain a certain measure of self-com- 
mand, or you must acquire a certain weight of wisdom, or you 
must gather a large amount of knowledge, or you must obtain 
wide influence, or you must unfold consummate caution and 
prudence, you might answer, Go to! You trifle with us. Your 
words are sounding brass or tinkling cymbals. You offer a 
remedy more costly than gems, rarer than rubies. For who can 
do all these things? Besides, your prescription is as old as 
Time ; and all the strength of men from the beginning has not 
availed to gather ingredients for a drop of the elixir large enough 
to cure the spite that festers in one little village. Well, I say 
none of these things, nor aught else that implies anything ac- 
complished. The recipe I shall give you involves simply an 
endeavor, and the immediate success or failure of it counts 
nothing. It matters not whether the undertaking be accom- 
plished; the potency is in the undertaking. 

Now, to set down the recipe. — But first, think not that this 



A •• CUBE-ALL." 215 

bland and healing remedy is an invention of mine, made of rare 
simples gathered in far journeyings, and combined with study and 
skill by me. No ; I found it in the wisdom of a German poet, 
condensed thus, — " Fight against the wrong thou doest, not re- 
ceivest." That is the remedy whose virtues I have pronounced 
so rare and absolute, — " Fight against the wrong thou doest, not 
receivest.' , 

You will see that nothing is required that is impossible to 
the weakest person. The recipe says not even fight with any 
given strength, still less with any given result; but only fight; 
which is to be understood to mean, Fight as much as you can, and 
fight against the wrong done fy/you, not against the wrong done 
to you. That is all. All! But it is as strong as Truth, as 
beautiful as Scripture, as healing as Love! 

Let us look at some of the qualities of this blessed remedy, 
which without fail can cure the little moral evils and shames of 
life ; the qualities which make it so simple and safe, so certain, 
and of so great effect. 

The great point in this rule is, that it requires only en- 
deavor; not success, not accomplishment, but only trying. Now 
effort is by nature continuous and unlimited. «If we were re- 
quired to do something, then when it were done the activity were 
done too. There is left only a stated fact, a thing accom- 
plished. But if the requirement be to try to do, this means con- 
tinuous activity, constant watchfulness, unceasing exertion. 
Consequently this remedy is one that acts on the ills of life not 
after the manner of a blow, which delivers its force and is done, 
but after the manner of a weight, that presses, presses, or pulls, 
all the time, and always with the same power. Now to under- 
stand how important a quality of the remedy this is, we must 
remember that many of the mean and despicable ills of life, — 
and oh how contemptible these little ills are ! — many of these, I 
say, in truth, most of them, would cease to afflict us, and even 
to exist, if only we would pay no attention to them. All the 
wrongs that are malicious, or presumptuous, or conceited, all the 
little evils done for anger, spite, envy, hatred, jealousy, would 
pass over our heads harmlessly and vanish like smoke if we 
gave no heed to them. To fight against the wrongs done to us 
is the same thing as to give heed to them; and it is on this at- 



216 A «' CURE-ALL/.' 

tention that they thrive, on " this meat that our Caesar grows so 
great." But if a man be busy fighting the wrong done by him 
thereby he will destroy all those wrongs done to him which per- 
ish if they be neglected. Whoever is striving constantly against 
the wrong he does, be assured, will have notim3 to busy himself 
with the wrongs he receives. Besides, he will be too well occupied 
even to see much of the wrong which would trouble him other- 
wise; he will not see or feel every little ill done to him. Great 
sensitiveness usually means great idleness. Thus this remedy 
occupies the ground with a man's struggle with himself, pro- 
ducing nobleness, and leaves no soil for those strifes of one man 
with another, which stir base passions and multiply bad deeds. 

Again, this remedy is potent, because so easily applied. 
This is as if some diseases might be cured by going out of doors, 
or by looking at the sky. For it is in every one's power to busy 
himself with himself, and to strive. If he conquer not at first, 
still he may strive. If the thousandth time he prevail not, still 
he may strive. And he who gets up every time he falls, as the 
proverb is, sometime shall get up to stand. Therefore, every 
one may begin to apply this remedy, as abundant as clean water 
or fresh air, to- the ills of life; and certain it is that if there be 
no cure it is for lack of application; for if everyone were ab- 
sorbed in the effort to destroy the little ills done by him, not to 
him, the source of all diseases, that is, vile self-neglect, would be 
cut off. 

Again, it is an important quality of this remedy that it 
applies force exactly at the point where it is efficient. For not 
only can every one strive against the wrongs which he himself 
does, but it is against his own wrong-doing that he can fight 
with some effect. But to war against the wrong done to us, "is as 
vain and as impossible as to fight against the arrow shot off 
yesterday, and makes wretched indeed sufferer and doer both." 
We can strive with some result against doing wrong, but what 
can you do against the wrong done? We are powerless against 
receiving a wrong. Inherent in this remedy, therefore, is the 
wisdom of the Stoics, which, as I have told you often, I never 
weary of dwelling on, namely, that all things good and ill fall 
into two classes, the things in our power and the things not in 
our power. Strive not, therefore, against the evils not in your 



A " CURE-ALL." 217 

power, for they will take care of themselves, according to the 
nature of the universe; but strive against the evils that are in 
your power, for these are the things left to your care, and you 
shall he able to prevail. " This thou must always bear in 
mind," says Antoninus, " what is the nature of the whole and 
what is thy nature, and how this is related to that, and what 
kind of a part it is of what kind of a whole, and that there is 
no one who hinders thee from always doing and saying the 
things which are according to the nature of which thou art a 
part. * * * * If thou workest at that which is before 
thee, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, with- 
out allowing anything else to distract thee, but keeping thy divine 
part pure, as if thou shouldst be bound to give it back immedi- 
ately, if thou boldest to this, expecting nothing, fearing noth- 
ing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature, 
and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utter- 
est, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is abb to prevent 
this." To fight against the wrong we do, not receive, is to be 
busy with the things which are in our power, wherein every 
man's efforts go far tow T ard the world's redemption, and tbe ef- 
forts of all would bring Paradise hither. 

Again, this remedy is very potent, because, although only 
endeavor is prescribed, actually it does include things done; and 
great things. If the mere fighting be so powerful, truly the 
victory when won is power itself. The majesty of victorious strug- 
gle with ourselves, has been a sight ravishing to the eyes of the 
sages of all times and places ; yes, and the elegance of it; for, 
as Emerson said, self-command is a wonderful elegance, felt 
even by the violent, the foolish, and the vain, although they may 
not know the secret of the power which subdues them. " He 
that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth 
hit, spirit than he that taketh a city." " If a man conquer in 
battle a thousand times a thousand men, and another conquer 
himself, he is the greatest of conquerors." " If a man can not 
improve himself, how can he improve others." " To see w T hat is 
right and not to do it, is the part of a cowardly mind." " Give 
me, Lord, these two desires, to see and to question myself." 
" Whom am I to conquer? Not the Persians, nor the distant 
Medes, nor the warlike tribes who dwell beyond Dacia; but 



218 A "CURE-ALL." 

avarice, ambition, and fear of death, which subdue the con- 
querors of the nations." " The grandest of empires is to rule 
oneself." u The ambassadors of King Antigonus invited Zeno 
to sup with other philosophers, who, as they drank, boasted of 
their learning. But Zeno kept silent. When the ambassadors 
asked him what they should report of him to their king, he re- 
plied, " What you see ; for the thing hardest to control of all is 
speaking." These, and such like crystals of speech scattered 
over the ages, show plainly what is thought of the dignity, power 
and beauty of victory over oneself. Hence the great potency in 
this remedy for the petty plagues and distressing small ills of 
our lives. He who neglecting the wrong done to him fights 
against the wrong done by himself, and gains the victory, has 
armed himself to ride over and tread down also the injuries 
aimed at him. For having conquered the impulse in himself to 
do an injury, he has vanquished the force which overcame the 
enemy who did him injury. Therefore it is certain he will sub- 
due his enemy in time, and win him over, since he has subdued 
the force which subdued his enemy. 

Finally, this remedy is very powerful because it encourages 
love, since we tend to love those whom we benefit or guard. I 
pray you notice that. It is a very lovely law of the affections. 
No one can benefit or take care of another without beginning to 
love him. And we tend to hate those whom we strive against. 
This remedy, therefore, has a mighty force. For reflect how 
many of the wrongs of life spring from hatred. I think no fact 
in human life is better established than this law, that we shall 
love those whom we benefit or try to benefit. What greater ser- 
vice, now, can we do another man, than to fight against the 
wrong we do him, neglecting the wrong he does us? Therefore, 
this remedy has love in it, " which beareth all things, believeth 
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," and never 
fails, though prophesies and tongues shall cease and knowledge 
vanish. It diffuses peace and quiet, allays the pain of our ills, 
cools our fevers and our heats, keeps the mind sane and disarms 
fury. Morover, there is another way in which love is a 
potency in this remedy. If we struggle with our own misdoing, 
we feel that we are living in a sphere where we are out of the 
power of all others, as Antoninus said; where no malice can 



A "CUBE- ALL." 219 

terrify and no harm reach us; for no one can prevent our en- 
deavor, nor interfere with the result of it. Said one of the sages, 
" Not even divine power could change into defeat a man's vic- 
tory over himself." Therefore, we shall not be so prone to 
anger, or hatred,- because we shall find ourselves lifted high 
above injury. Antoninus said, "It is peculiar to man to love 
even those who do wrong. And this happens if when they do 
wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen and that they do 
wrong through ignorance and unintentionally." That, you know, 
was the great Stoic doctrine, and we have met it, too, in Socra- 
tes, namely, that knowledge and virtue are one, and that no man 
ever lived who did anything so much against his own interests 
as to do wrong, really understanding it to be wrong. " And," 
goes on the gentle Stoic, " remember that soon both of you will 
die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm; 
for he has not made thy ru in i faculty worse than it was before" 

How great a remedy is this, in which love exists by chem- 
ical reaction, as it were, not being mixed into the potion, but 
evolved in it by the action of the ingredients on each other, 
since by the nature of the remedy we benefit others, and by 
benefitting, love. Whoso hates 

" Shuts himself out from the great realm of life. 
That man must have moi e than the power of God 
To draw henceforth another breath of joy : 
Whereas love s fount has power with one sole draught 
To make the poorest life and longest, rich, 
And fill its parting dreams with endless bliss." 



JESUS OF NAZAEETH. 



I am to speak to yon of Jesus of Nazareth. The reflec- 
tions which I shall offer you will be formed around this outline, 
namely: 

I. That Jesus was a man. 

II. That he was a glorious man. 

III. Therefore, that 

1. He lived in very close contact with his age and 

time. 

2. This close contact and sympathy with his time was 

manifested in 
(a) A simple natural conformity to many current 
notions, commonly received among the people, spirit- 
ual non-essentials, touching the innei life only re- 
motely, (b) A deep breathing-in of that prophecy, 
onward motion, spiritual freedom, which the age 
needed, for which it was ripe — the universal in the 
local. (/■) The opposition of this prophecy, spirit- 
uality and freedom within him to the current formal- 
ism. 

IV. Hence his great hold on human life, on the souls of 
all succeeding generations. 

V. The mental quality of Jesus. 

VI. The quality of the heart of Jesus. 

We have come to understand that Jesus was a man, a real, 
living man, acting, walking, eating, sleeping, thinking, speaking, 
grieving, rejoicing, loving and praying. 

Now this is a very great discovery, not made for eighteen 
centuries after that glorious life had ended, In the first three 



222 JESUS OF NAZABETH. 

gospels Jesus is not a man. He is a great special legate from 
Yahweh, called the Messiah, Christ, miraculously born, miracu- 
lously living, miraculously dying, miraculously leaving the earth, 
by like miracle ascending into the sky. In the fourth gospel 
Jesus is still less a man. He appears on the scene and disap- 
pears, without warning or method, as if in regard to him the 
greatest extreme crises of life, birth and death, were matters of 
no moment or value. Throughout the early years of the church 
his nature was discussed endlessly, but he was never a man and 
a brother, always something other than human. Some held him 
to be chief of the angels, the first and highest of created beings, 
clothed with a body that thus he might come on the earth con- 
veniently. Others said he was the divine Word not created, 
but being from all eternity, and that he was not invested 
with flesh, his body being a mere phantom without existence. 
Others agreed that he was the divine Word uncreated and eter- 
nal, but considered his body real and substantial. Still others 
said that the Word was not only united in Jesus with a human 
body, but with a human soul too, so that he was at once both 
God and man. This was accepted by a great council of the 
Church, and has continued to be the orthodox doctrine to the 
present day. Thus you see, through all these ages, we have had no 
Jesus, only Christ; no brother-man, but an officer, a legate; no 
man of our kindred, but a being of strange nature and powers, 
invested with startling wonders, supernatural, preternatural, in- 
explicable, a pure creation, as it seems to me, of dogma and 
legend. But we have discovered, not long ago, that Jesus was 
a man. So recently, indeed, have we discovered this, that very 
few people there are in the world who understand and believe it; 
which is indeed a great pity, for when we come to that truth as 
we should, it is a most emancipating truth, lifting humanity very 
high, and filling us with fires of aspiration to go up to the 
mount of vision with this elder brother of men. 

But secondly, Jesus was not only a man, but a very glori- 
ous man, a great prophet, a seer, a soul kindled with the divine 
light, full indeed of di vdnity. If any one have eyes to see, and 
believe in God, he will see that our own present is divine. And 
what is that but to say that God lives, or, as Jesus phrased 
it, " My father worketh hitherto." And if divine now, then 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 223 

surely still divine when, even as now I speak, this present has 
become no longer present, but past. A moment ago was divine 
because God was in it; it is still divine to thought, worship and 
memory, by that same thought of God. It is ordained an evan- 
gelist by our blessed memory. All tne past, therefore, is divine, 
having once been present; all is still precious, having been the 
passage onward of man, filled with his life, his thoughts, his 
love, devotion, worship. That is most precious which, while 
being acted, was most divine. Among these stands that grand 
and holy life of Jesus, among the very highest that this earth 
has known, lifting indeed the head so high into the heavens that 
the heavens and earth become as one. And a very momentous 
life to the world! I turn to it evermore and contemplate it, 
without abasement, because without superstition; without fear, 
because without servitude; with love and gratitude, because with 
freedom ; for no man loves what he loves not in the freely out- 
going heart. 

Hence, thirdly, because Jesus was a glorious man, living 
the high life of the spirit, he stood in close contact with his 
time. For no man can be grand and high who in-breathes not 
the present spirit of God. This standing in close contact with 
his time was shown in part by his simple conformity to many 
current notions. He was a true child of his age and people; he 
lived, acted and spoke in close sympathy wich all about him ; he 
felt the pulse, he understood the heart-beat, he interpreted the 
signs of the time; he was moulded consciously and uncon- 
sciously by its needs; he partook also of its limitations, its mis- 
apprehensions. Jesus himself seems to have felt that he was 
the true interpreter of his time. " How is it," he says, re- 
proaching the people, " that ye can not discern the signs of these 
times?" He told them they seemed to understand the meaning 
of the cloud in the West, yet seemed but little sensitive to the 
spiritual atmosphere. He would not have been his own great 
self if he had not felt through and through his soul the infinite 
life-currents of his time, as sensitive as still water to the breath 
of the spirit, reflecting in his being the soul of the time as a 
star lies in the wave, full, clear and bright, but breaking by the 
billow's motion into a thousand disjoined beams. If thus 
he stood in quick relation with the life about him, which is a 



224 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

necessary condition of such grandeur of spirit as bis was, it is 
not to be supposed that be could escape all misapprehensions, 
limitations, difficulties. Even to these likewise (for they were 
deeply imbedded in the spirit of his time) his soul was sensitive. 
He must drink a mixed cup, he must partake of error along 
with inspiration. He must be brought and exalted to divine 
insight; but also he must be left in much error, in many partial, 
local, temporary ideas. 

A great spirit is always in some way beyond his time ; but 
never in all ways, for that were to be monstrous ; that were to 
be cast in an unfeeling mold which would make greatness im- 
possible, or else to be a spirit from another sphere, unable to 
come to our apprehension, sympathy or brotherhood. In true 
and entire relation to his time, I say, the great and healthy soul of 
Jesus must have stood. Therefore, at times he surpassed him- 
self ; at other times, he mingled his lofty and sublime teach- 
ing with partial or local colors. 

This view is not speculation; it is the result of reading the 
gospels carefully and critically. For example: One of the ideas 
highly characteristic of Hebrew teaching is that of a Satan, a 
chief or ruling devil, the king of an infernal court consisting of 
angels who rebelled and fell from heaven before earth's creation, 
as also of some of the wicked races before the deluge. This 
Satan was supposed to have much power, and to be an active 
and industrious tempter of men, to their destruction. Now, it is 
very clear, if the record shall be trusted, that Jesus accepted quite 
implicitly the current notion of Satan. That the disciples re- 
garded Jesus as believing in Satan is plain from the story of the 
temptation, which is recorded by Mark, and told circumstan- 
tially by Matthew and Luke with perfect and simple good faith. 
The conversation between Satan and Jesus is narrated. But 
not only in this story is this belief ascribed to the Master, but in 
various direct conversations he expresses it himself. When the 
Pharisees charged him with exorcising by means of Satan, the 
Master answered, " If Satan cast out Satan, then he is divided 
against himself. And, if by Beelzebub I cast out devils, then 
tell me, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore, 
they shall be your judges."* At another time he said to them, 

* Mt. xii, 26-27. 



JESUS OF NAZAEETH. 225 

" Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father 
ye will do."* And again, if the fourth gospel shall be trusted, 
Jesus announced the Messianic triumph and judgment by saying, 
" Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of 
this world be cast out,"f the " prince of this world " being a well 
known designation of Satan at that time, and it being the well 
understood and anticipated work of the Messiah to subdue and 
cast him out. Now, thus it stands in the gospels. If we shall 
trust the record, Jesus took this current notion as he found it, 
without thinking of it or questioning it, but using the language, 
and I suppose holding the ideas. It is usual in regard to this, 
and similar passages, with those who are resolved to admit no 
element of error in Jesus' thought or knowledge, to rest on 
the theory of accommodation. Jesus, they say, knew that 
Satan was a mere myth, an empty name; but in his teaching he 
accommodated his language to the ideas of his hearers, so as 
better to get at their minds, and disarm their prejudices against 
his other and more important truths. Well, let any rejoice in 
this device who may or can. For myself, I have such faith in 
that grand prophetic spirit that I believe he would have in- 
structed the people in the folly of the common notion of Satan 
if he himself had suspected it; at least, that he would not have 
used language which directly implied or expressed a belief con- 
trary to his real view. Would you like your minister to preach 
in that manner? And is it noble and blessed, in your souls, to 
think of Jesus as an " accommodating" teacher? 

Another current belief of the time was that of a place of 
dire punishment, an abode of evil spirits and retreat of Satan, 
called Hell. That the disciples believed Jesus shared this notion 
also is evident throughout the gospels: — "Whosoever shall say 
(to his brother) Thou fool ! shall be in danger of hell fire."J; 
" It is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish 
and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."|| "Fear 
not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; 
but rather fear him who is able to kill both soul and body in 
hell".§ "It is better for thee to enter life halt or maimed, 
rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into ever- 
lasting fire."** " Then shall he say also unto them on the left 

*Jh. viii, 44. fJh. xii, 31. JMt. v, 22. ||Mt. v, 30. §Mt. x, 28. **Mt, xviii, 8 



226 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

hand, Depart from me' ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared 
for the devil and his angels. * * * * And these shall go 
away to everlasting punishment."* To a like purpose is the 
parable of Lazarus and the rich man, the latter being repre- 
sented as in hell, in torments, and praying for a drop of water 
to cool his tongue devoured by the flames. f Such passages 
make it clear that, at least in the opinion of the Evangelists, 
this belief was accepted by Jesus. 

Another current notion of the time was that of demoniacal 
possession; various diseases, of which little or nothing was 
known, were thought to be caused by demons entering into and 
possessing the human body, subjecting it to dumbness, deafness, 
violent, spasms, and other disorders. Wherefore, the only cure 
for such cases was thought to be the expulsion of the demon 
from his abode in the body. That Jesus shared in this common 
delusion admits of no doubt, if we shall trust the record and 
read it carefully. Take for example the case of the herd of 
swine into which Jesus permitted some demons to enter after he 
had expelled them from the human body. J Not only is the inci- 
dent itself decisive, but the demons speak to Jesus recognizing 
his Messianic mission, and on their entreaty to be allowed to 
enter the swine, Jesus speaks to them, saying, " Go." Again, 
the first Gospel relates that a possessed child was brought to the 
disciples, who failed to cast out the demon; then " Jesus re- 
buked the devil and he departed out of him; and the 
child was cured from that very hour:"| and when the disciples 
asked the cause of their failure, he replied, " Because of your 
unbelief," and added, " This kind goeth out by nothing save 
by prayer." Again — " John answered and said, Master we 
saw one casting out devils in thy name and we forbade him, be- 
cause he followed not with us ; and Jesus said unto him, Forbid 
him not, for he that is not against us is for us."§ The seventy 
disciples return to Jesus with joy, saying, " Lord, even the 
devils are subject unto us through thy name;" and Jesus accedes 
to the fact, and enjoins them not to rejoice too much in this power, 
but rather that their names are written in heaven.** And Jesus 
speaks of the woman whose infirmity he healed as one " Whom 
Satan hath bound lo! these eighteen years."ff From these and 

*Mt. xxv, 41-46. +Lc. xvi, 19. JMt. viii 28: Mc. ix, 29. ||Mt. xvii, 14. 

§Lc. ix, 49-50. **Lc. x, 17. t+Lc. xiii, 16. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 227 

many like passages, it is plain that the Evangelists regard Jesus 
as believing in demons and their possession of human bodies. 
What is there to rebut their authority? Were they such slaves 
to their prejudices that they utterly failed to understand the 
Master in such plain points? Yet as before I said,so again, — 
Who can believe that Jesus saw the folly of it and yet not only 
omitted to instruct his nearest friends and personal disciples, but 
even spoke to them as if he saw it not? Away with this view of 
Jesus. "One evening," says Emerson's son, "after a conversation, 
when zealous radicals had explained that the death of Jesus had 
been simulated, not real, and planned beforehand by him and 
his disciples for its effect on the people, while he thereafter kept 
in hiding, my mother tells that she asked my father, « Should 
you like to have the children hear that?' He said 'No; it's 
odious to have lilies pulled up and skunk cabbages planted in 
their places.'" 

Other points I might discuss touching the close relation of 
Jesus to his own time, but must pass them by. But again I 
say, this close contact with his age and time was, in him, as it 
must be in every great heart, a deep breathing-in of the proph- 
ecy and the forward motion for which that age was ripe. Every 
age is a record of past ages, and a prophecy of future ages. 
Every epoch, community, place, is a garden where the flowers 
were planted long ago, and the blooming of them tended and 
nursed by other hands long gone, by the parents, the sufferers, 
the laborers of past times. But the flowers and fruit of the 
garden hide the seeds of the future garden, that our children 
and children's children shall see bloom. In each epoch the past 
lies down, like a spent traveler in a hostlery, and at the same 
hour a fresh courier is mounted to carry forward the king's mes- 
sage. Without figure, each time or age is a product or sum of 
the past, and also a prophecy or heralding of the future. But 
the two voices, the past and the future, differ very much in their 
volume and loudness. The voice and record of the past is prom- 
inent, heard on all the street-corners, in shops, halls, legislatures, 
churches, schools. The prophecy of the future is a delicate 
voice, heavenly, quiet, overborne and drowned in the din of the 
past, in roar of trade, the clashing of bells, triumphant bands of 
music, processions, orations. Amid the shouts, cheers, swayings 



228 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

to and fro, the tramp of feet, the calls to action, amid these, I say, 
the prophecy of the future retreats to quiet places, to be heard 
only by quiet and holy souls, by the reverent, the listening, the 
pure-hearted, unselfish, fearless and free. 

Now this prophecy of the future always is the voice of uni- 
versal human nature, the ideal, the free, the spiritual, the ever- 
lasting, sounding quietly but clearly amid the noise and tumult 
of the local, the formal, the ceremonial. It is the voice of 
Faith above the creeds, of Thoughts above conventions or cur- 
rent frenzies and bigotries, the voice of the freedom of the 
spirit above the bondage and fetters of the letter, the psalm of 
worship above forms and restraints, the call of the universal and 
heavenly above the partial and the earthly. 

Therefore, the quiet and devout spirit who thus is so close 
to h s age as to feel therein the beating heart of all ages, as well 
those coming as those gone, and to know the tone of the free, 
the pure, the unseen things which are eternal, over the noise of 
the bound, the adulterated, the visible ceremonies which are 
temporal, — such a spirit, I say, will take, without looking at 
them, many current notions, as it is recorded Jesus did, which 
touch not the difference between the transitory and eternal (or 
he perceives not that they touch thereon), but he will oppose 
surely and grandly other current thoughts of the time which do 
touch the difference between the formal and the spiritual, the 
partial and the universal, the temporal and the eternal. And 
thus Jesus did. 

Let us look at two instances: 

One of the most important features in the intensifying of 
Judaism which marks the time of Jesus, was the development 
of that superstitious veneration for the Mosaic Law, which char- 
acterized the Jews of that epoch. During and after their cap- 
tivity at Babylon, their obedience to the Law became passionate 
and fanatical. Their Law stood to them in place of territory, 
and was their one bond of union in the land of strangers. They 
clung to it as not only the symbol, but the means and support of, 
their nationality. Then covenant, their bond with Yahweh, was the 
Law. It was in their eyes divine, absolutely perfect, their shrine, 
altar, offering, religion. It touched and regulated not only wor- 
ship and sacrifice, but the most minute business and duty of 



JESUS OF NAZABETH. 229 

daily life. It was their household deity. This passion sank 
deeper and deeper into the national mind, until it became al- 
most a madness, a kind of fury. The Scribes toiled over every 
letter, counted every mark, found some mystery in every point 
and character. Jerusalem was kept in constant terror by riots 
incited by zealots for the Law. The edifices of Herod were attacked, 
lest images should be concealed in them. Bands of assassins 
arose pledged to kill any one seen disobeying the Law. Phrases 
from Moses were copied on parchment and worn on the forehead 
or elsewhere. "We are Moses' disciples," said the Pharisees to 
the man born blind; " as for this fellow, we know not whence 
he is."* 

We think that to-day we reverence this Bible. Our cold 
western nature begins not to understand the fire of the Hebrew. 
Imagine the veneration and superstition of the most orthodox 
devotee increased a hundred or a thousand fold, and you will 
have some slight conception of that passion for the Law which 
filled the Jews. The learned scholar, Sophocles, at Harvard 
University, told me once that when a Mohammedan ambassador 
in this country visited the college, some one, desiring to please 
him, took from its case a manuscript of the Koran and brought 
it to the Turk ; but the good Moslem, on seeing the sacred vol- 
ume, seized it from the hand of the infidel with signs of horror, 
ran and put it back in its case, and shut the lid, that the holy book 
might not be desecrated by the touch of infidel hands. " Now," 
said Sophocles, " conceive that Moslem's emotion and fanati- 
cism over the sacred book increased a thousand times, and 
you will begin to understand the fervor, the intensity, of the 
Jews regarding the Mosaic Law at the Christian Era." 

Bearing these facts in mind, let me now read you some 
passages from the Sermon on the Mount, paraphrasing them 
in order thus to offer a running commentary, that their meaning 
and force may be plain; and then picture to yourselves the 
divine courage and truth of the great soul that dared to stand on 
the hillside and speak such views: — " Oh ye people, do you 
dream that this great law of yours is perfect? I tell you nay. 
Yet think not I have come to destroy it, I have come to add to 
it, to expand it, to complete it with spiritual fullness. You 
know that it says in the Ten Commandments, ' Thou shalt not 

*Jh. ix, 28-29. 



230 JESUS OF NAZARETH, 

kill.' Well, that is only partial. I tell you that everyone angry 
with his brother is in spirit like a murderer. You know the pre- 
cept also in Deuteronomy, where Moses allows you to divorce 
your wife simply by giving a writing of divorcement.* I tell 
you that Moses was wrong; there is but one cause of divorce 
writ in heaven. Again, both in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, 
Moses commands you to keep your oaths unto the Lord.f I 
show you a better way, — Swear not at all, but speak with sim- 
ple Yes and No. You remember Moses' precept in Leviticus, 
' An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'J That is wrong ; 
that is barbarous; I say unto you, Eesist not the evil-doer after 
that manner. You know that in Leviticus it is said, ' Love thy 
friend;' I that is poor virtue; that falls very short; I say to you, 
Love your enemies, and pray for your persecutors." 

One of the particulars of the Law invested with peculiar 
sanctity, and enforced with fierce rigor, was the observance of 
the Sabbath. Even in time of war there could be no defence 
made on that day. We read that one thousand followers of 
Matthias the Maccabee were surprised in a cave on the Sabbath 
by Syrian troops, and slain without resistance, because it was 
Sabbath day, on which they would not fight. Now let us see 
how J esus treated this literalism. A man came to him, we are 
told, with a withered hand, and the narrow literalists stood 
watching, watching, to see what he would do. Tell me, said 
Jesus, divining their thoughts, tell me now, whether I shall do 
good this day or evil, save life or neglect it? But the sullen 
crowd was silent. Then the prophet, in the simple words of 
Mark, looking around about on them with indignation, being 
grieved with their hardness of heart, said unto the man, Stretch 
forth thy hand; and he stretched it out, and his hand was re- 
stored whole as the other.§ Jesus' disciples, one Sabbath day, 
plucked and eat corn when they were out in the fields, and the 
Pharisees complained of them as Sabbath-breakers. But Jesus 
answered in wonderful way, that the Sabbath was made for 
man and not man for the Sabbath, and that man was therefore 
lord of the Sabbath. When at another time they sought to slay 
Jesus for healing on the Sabbath day, he returned the sublime 
answer, " My Father worketh even until now, and I work."** 

*Deut. xxiv, 1. +Levit. xix, 12 : Deut. xxiii, 21. JLeVit. xxiv, 20. 

||Levit. xix, 18. §Mc. iii, 1-6. **Jh. v, 17. 



JESUS OF NAZABETH. 231 

Now, remembering the fierce legal fanaticism of the whole 
community, what magnificence of courage, power, truthfulness, 
prophecy, devotion, shines forth in such words and deeds of the 
Master. Who was this Galilean peasant, this carpenter of a 
despised little town, that he should speak heedless of the fury of 
a nation of formalists, defy the authority of Moses, proclaim a 
holiness above the Law, and in the might of his own soul dare 
that authoritative " I say unto you," so that the messengers re- 
turned and told the Scribes that he spoke not like to them, but 
as one having authority, — who was he to do this, the Galilean 
peasant? 

Another particular in that intensifying of Judaism which 
resulted from the captivity and disasters of the people, was the 
development and power of the Traditions or Oral Law. In addi- 
tion to the written Law of Moses, it was taught that there was 
a large body of regulations given to Moses on Sinai and handed 
down by tradition from age to age through the venerable and 
eminent characters of their history. It was believed that the 
Traditions spoken to Moses on Sinai, by him were told to Joshua, 
and by Joshua again to the line of prophets, and by them at last 
to the scribes and doctors of the law, who had preserved them 
sacred in memory. Whence these Traditions were a part of the 
Hebrew religion, as much as the written Scriptures, or the 
Temple worship. These were also increased by a multitude 
of rules adopted from time to time by the Rabbins in order 
to protect the law, according to the traditional direction, 
11 Make a fence for the law;" that is, observe so much 
more than is required that you will be sure to observe 
all; a caution like that of those Christians who deem it wise to 
believe all they can that they may be sure to believe a saving 
quantity. This immense body of traditional laws, rules and 
observances was venerated and obeyed by the people with no 
less awe and fervor than the laws of the stone tables themselves. 
The most minute and trivial occupations of life were governed 
and overshadowed by these traditional requirements. In illus- 
tration of this curious subject, quite unparalleled in the history 
of the world, J quote a passage from these rules of the elders, 
taken from a prayer-book of the German Jews, relative to 
" lighting candles on the eve of the Sabbath, which is the duty 



232 JESUS OF NAZABETH. 

of every Jew, — " " With what sort of wick and oil are the can- 
dles of the Sabbath to be lighted, and with what are they not to 
be lighted? They are not to be lighted with the woolly substance 
that grows upon cedars, nor with undressed flax, nor with silk, 
nor with rushes, nor with leaves out of the wilderness, nor with 
moss that grows on the surface of water, nor with pitch, nor 
with wax, nor with oil mide of cotton-seed, nor with the fat of 
the tail or the entrails of beasts. Nathan Hamody saith it may 
be lighted with boiled suet; but the wise men say, be it boiled or 
not boiled, it may not be lighted with it. It may not be lighted 
with burnt oil on festival days. Rabbi Ishmael says it may not 
be lighted with train oil because of honor to the Sabbath," and 
so following.* 

Connected with this oral law was another particular of the 
intensified Judaism of the later Jews, namely, the existence and 
authority of the Scribes and Rabbins. The law, which had be- 
come such a passion, became, in consequence, "a deep and intri- 
cate study." Those who devoted their lives to it and became 
learned in its precepts and skillful in their application, were re- 
garded with great veneration and homage. "Learning in the 
law became the great distinction." It was, besides, a necessity; 
for when written rules are made to interfere minutely in daily 
life, they require to be interpreted and adapted endlessly; and 
only trained and learned interpreters could be trusted where in- 
fringement was regarded with so much horror and fear. Hence, 
in interpreting and applying the law, the Scribes and Rabbins 
created and transmitted the vast body of traditions before- 
mentioned, which were obeyed with reverence and awe. They 
thus became the august and venerated custodians of the whole 
religion of the people; they were the keepers of the nation's 
conscience; the people looked up to them, says a historian, 
" with implicit confidence in their infallibility;" they composed 
the great national court, the Sanhedrim; they held a spiritual 
trust and supremacy, which overshadowed the mere priesthood, 
" till at length the maxim was openly promulgated, ' The voice of 
the Rabbin, the voice of God.'" Their influence was carried 
into all the corners of the land by the new system of synagogues 
in addition to the temple worship, each of which had its pre- 

*Smith's Bible Diet., Art. " Pharisees." 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 233 

siding Rabbi. The Scribes were inseparably connected with the 
Pharisees. The Pharisees almost may be defined as the follow- 
ers of the Scribes ; and they embraced the strength and mass of 
the nation, the Sadducees being a small and exclusive minority. 
The Pharisees were separatists, purists, advoca'tes and supporters 
of a perfect and unmixed Judaism against all foreign influence. 
They arose in the great struggles of the Maccabeans, and were 
the descendants, crystalized into a class, of the zealous Jewish 
and anti-Greek party of that period. Their traditions were 
recommended by patriotism and national enthusiasm. They 
were the incarnation of the Jewish ideal of the times, the very 
flower and fruit of the intensified Judaism succeeding the cap- 
tivity. They were equally zealous for the Law and for the Tra- 
ditions of the Elders, which they daily practiced with an inten- 
sity of formalism never surpassed, probably never equalled. 
The stricter Pharisees were regarded as the type of piety and 
religion. They were the great and honored class in society. " The 
Scribes and Pharisees " is a formula expressing the whole weight, 
power, character, and sanctity of Judaism. 

How, now, did Jesus treat these powerful and 'venerated 
formalists, when they stood in the way of that spiritual 
religion, that pure religion of the heart, of Avhich he was 
the fearless and truthful prophet? Think not, said Jesus, 
that mere outward conformity and ritualistic punctuality 
will avail; "for I tell you that unless your righteous- 
ness shall exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye 
shall in no case enter in + o the kingdom of heaven."* Do you 
complain that I sit at table with these poor outcast people, these 
Publicans and sinners, lest I may, perhaps, eat something ritu- 
ally unclean? " Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice!"! He made occasion to tell the 
people that a man was not defiled by what he ate, but by what 
came forth from his heart. His disciples informed him that the 
Pharisees were offended with this saying; but Jesus told them 
that these formalists were not plants of his Father's planting, 
and should be rooted up. " Let them alone (he said) ; they are 
blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead' the blind, 
both shall fall into the ditch. "J You reject me and my teach- 

*Mt. v, 20. +Mt. ix, 13. :Mt. xv, 12-14. 



234 JESUS OP NAZAKETH. 

ings, but the rejected block becomes the corner-stone, and " I 
tell you the kingdom of God shall be taken from you (who im- 
agine yourselves its only heirs), and given to a nation bringing 
forth the fruits thereof."* Behold the Pharisee and the Publi- 
can at prayer, — the " self-estimated saint" rejoicing in his piety, 
and the " acknowledged sinner " who will not lift his eyes 
whither his thoughts fly in the prayer of humility ! I tell you 
that the publican goes down to his house justified rather than 
the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, 
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.f Oh hypocrites, 
who love the chief seats and the homage of men; who devour 
widows' houses and make long prayers for a pretence, pay tithes 
and observe ceremonies, but omit the weightier matters of sin- 
cerity, justice and love; who are like whited sepulchres and 
half-cleaned caps, fair to be seen, but foul within! J 

These were the fearless reproofs of this voice of God, this 
prophet of the soul. 

That is the Master unto me! That power is what seizes 
and holds the human soul, I think, and makes Jesus the reli- 
gious inspiration of all these nineteen centuries since. 

Any man does well for himself and others who simply and 
truthfully tells what he thinks, describes what he sees. It 
is he who is the living witness of the moment. He opens his 
lips to drink of the divine stream of truth, justice, love, that 
pours on forever from God. It is free to him to drink of it, and 
free to all who will. He who drinks will speak and act with 
authority which is divine. There will be no mere appearance, 
no pretence in him. He will be all real and true. He will tell 
what is the real and moving experience of his own soul. He 
will utter what his thoughts have toiled with and cleared up; he 
will not keep back anything; he will say naught because it is 
customary, or popular or easy ; he will not recite any creed or 
echo any synod, or follow a fashion, or bow to an idol, or bend 
to a book; he will not robe himself in any past though it be 
magnificent; he will not be drawn away by any future though it 
be seductive. He will be simple, real and true, in the present. 
He will speak what is plain and real to his eyes. He will be- 
lieve the omnipresence of the One from whose eternal stream of 

*Mt. xxi, 43. +Lc. xviii. Mt. xxiii. Lc. xi, 39 f. 



JESUS OF NAZABETH. 235 

justice he drinks. If we lay hold of such a man, it is into the 
company of God he takes us, and with divine strength that he 
invigorates us. But when tradition replaces the soul; when 
men and teachers require only to repeat what has been sanctioned, 
or to attach religion to any time or to any person, it being for 
every time and for every person; when they replace what is 
living now in themselves by what lived at some time in others; 
when what is witnessed is passed by and what is felt or thought 
is unsaid, while what is memorized is repeated; when religion is 
not a living testimony of man, but rests on records, rituals, 
or readings, — then flows through the church, the school, the 
market, court and dwelling " a stream of ice and death." " It 
is true," exclaims a great teacher, " that tradition characterizes 
the preaching of this country; that it comes out of the memory 
and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is usual, and not at 
what is necessay and eternal; that thus historical Christianity 
destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the ex- 
ploration of the moral nature of man where the sublime is, 
where are the resources of astonishment and power. * * * 
Scarcely in a thousand years does any man dare to be wise and 
good, and so draw after him the tears and blessings of his 
kind. * * * * It is the office of a true teacher to show us 
that God is, not was; that he speaketh, not spake. * * * 
* Once leave your own knowledge of God, your own sentiment, 
and take secondary knowledge as Saint Paul's, or George Fox's, 
or Swedenborg's, and you get wide from God with every year 
this secondary form lasts; and if , as now, for centuries, the 
chasm yawns to that breadth that men can scarcely be con- 
vinced there is in them anything divine."* 

Well then, would Jesus, who would have no master, be our 
master? Think you that he who went but into his own soul 
would have us leave that temple of God, even to go to his soul? 
No. But if he be not Lord and King, then he is on the plane 
of brotherhood with us, a man as we are men. This trans- 
figures humanity. Is there any right way to measure human 
nature but by its highest examples? By what will you define, by 
the superior limit or the inferior? I will proclaim evermore that 
the ideal is the natural. Jesus makes the race better worth be- 

*Emerson, " Div. School Address." 



236 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

longing to, illustrates it, glorifies and sanctifies it, hallows it. 
This view of Jesus raises the moral and spiritual. If power be 
referred to character and not to circumstance or office, no longer 
are we impressed or overpowered by authority, by miracle, by 
special mission, or credentials from heavenly courts. Jesus' 
credentials are his own moral elevation, spiritual life, prophetic 
sight. These, it is true, are credentials from Grod, but they are 
credentials of such sort as one child may bring to another 
child of the same father and mother, credentials of kindredness, 
of community of origin, life and nature. His life has called unto 
us to enter into a like sonship. 

I behold Jesus, the child, the man, and the men, the scenes, 
in a way very real and great, when thus I think of him. I am 
carried to Nazareth, which I suppose was his birthplace; where 
no doubt his childhood and yduth were passed subject to his 
parents, and his early manhood subject to his own deep brood- 
ings on those quiet and beautiful hills. What his preparation 
was we can guess but dimly, — what long imaginings, lonely 
vigils, solitary musings, what wandering in those hills and val- 
leys, what sights and sounds. He plied his trade, I suppose, 
and worked as a carpenter with his father. Perhaps his spirit 
took long to ripen. Was he not to neighbors and friends only a 
simple and friendly country lad, content and unambitious, work- 
ing at his craft? I suppose no one guessed what was in him, and 
he himself knew not. He who afterward was so deeply spir- 
itual must have been always simple and unconscious of himself. 
The records of his home, of those early years, are obscured by 
the rich legends that gathered about that unknown incubation 
when the sublime life afterward was displayed. It is in vain 
that we wish we had of him a larger biography; still less, if he 
had lived a score of years in public instead of one or two or 
three, could he have written an autobiography. Of such spirits 
we catch only glimpses. We can not see divinity so near. We 
must be left with a gleam of the infinite, to the majesty of our 
own surmise. But I seem to see him as he grew in that oriental 
beauty, playful, tearful, hearty, happy, loving, docile, working, 
learning, growing, thinking, observing, reading, listening, brood- 
ing, dreaming, yearning, praying, resolving. He sat in the 
synagogues on the Sabbath; he visited Jerusalem at times to 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 237 

hear the imposing worship of the great Temple. He talked 
along the way with fellow Galileans. He drew away slowly 
from all political hopes, all the formal prides, exclusive rites and 
old tyrannies that made the religion of his time dead and 
drear. He saw that life was departing hecause no longer any 
one believed in the soul, but all were intent on Moses and the 
prophets, as on a dispensation closed, a revelation finished. 
Keligion was formality, truth was repetition, goodness was cere- 
mony. At last, in loneliness and obscurity, and with these 
thoughts, the ten years of his opening manhood were ended, and 
at thirty he could be silent no longer, because he was filled with 
that one thing to say. Then began his brief career as an agi- 
tator. He said not to the people, Moses says this, or Jeremiah 
that, or this again says David or Isaiah. He said, " This is 
what /say; this is how it seems to me; this is how I dare believe 
it is; this is what I proclaim." God passed not with past years, 
he said; what illumined the prophets still shines for you, 
making clear to the faithful all the conditions and duties of this 
time. I see, he said, that by rent uncing your own reason and 
conscience, you have made religion ritual and formal, and right- 
eousness mere observance. But unless you have a righteous- 
ness better thau this of your teachers the Scribes, you will have 
no part in the kingdom. And as to this kingdom, see how you 
are all sunk in sensible, external things. You are dreaming of 
a king who shall conquer your enemies, form a great empire, 
and rule with glory over the chosen people. But you will find 
that God chooses all; that many of the outcasts and gentiles 
from the East and West shall enter before you, for by humility 
and spiritual life they are prepared better. It shall be ihe pure 
in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace- 
makers, and not war-makers, who shall inherit the kingdom. 

So I see that great figure, standing and preaching, or talking 
by the wayside with villagers, or on the lake shores, or on vineyard 
terraces, disputing with cunning priests who laid traps for him, 
— teaching " as one having authority, and not as the Scribes," 
who rested all things on Moses and the Law; preaching to a 
few who loved but to many who hated, gaining the ear of simple 
folk by the simple truth of religion shining in him, but rousing 
the enmity of the powerful by his heresy and liberty. 



238 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

The end could not be doubtful, nor was it unforeseen nor 
long delayed; but those few months have named after them- 
selves nineteen centuries, because they were filled with a soul 
preaching the divine authority of its own rapture and vision. 

"There are persons who are not actors, " exclaims Emer- 
son, " not speakers, but influences, persons too great for fame, 
for display, who disdain eloquence, to whom all we call art and 
artist seems too nearly allied to show and by-ends, to the ex- 
aggeration of the finite and selfish and loss of the universal. 
* * * * It is in rugged crises, in unweariable endurance, 
and in aims which put sympathy out of question, that the 
angel is shown. But these are heights that we can scarce re- 
member and look up to without contrition and shame. Let us 
thank God that such things exist." 



I have treated the prophetic devotion and truthfulness of 
Jesus but imperfectly and scantily, so great is the theme, so 
ready with rich instances from the stirring scenes of his life. 
I turn to follow the Scriptures into other features of his char- 
acter, taking him just as the Gospels picture him. I wish no 
more than to set before you the man they have set forth, they 
the Evangelists, not pausing over any critical questions as to the 
authority of the narratives or discourses, but simply trying to 
set forth the figure as therein it shines. 

I will speak now of the intellectual quality of the Master. 
Jesus had great intelligence. In our admiration for his holiness, 
gentleness, courage, and all that make up the moral glories of 
his character, sometimes we overlook the large as well as incisive 
intelligence and wit of this great Master. It is well that the 
world should turn about him chiefly for his goodness; for good- 
ness is the greatest of all things. Weiss has said, very nobly, 
that whatever the glory of a landscape on which we look, how 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 239 

magnificent soever its array of earth and sky, yet, if a man 
enter the scene, or but a boy, who under his jacket has a throb 
of duty, it is no detraction to say that the splendor of the earth 
and heavens becomes but as a mite beside that morality. So, 
likewise, even if it be a bad man that enters on the lovely scene, 
still he is like a gnarled and crooked tree, misshapen by some 
storm, or by some unhappy twist when but a sapling. Yet is the 
core untwisted, out of which skill of hand may make an article 
as comely and bright as any flower in the meadow, or as a white 
cloud in the blue heavens. So can the divine hand shape the 
man's soul which hath become incased in such a twisted and 
scarred form, yea, and will shape it. This makes even the bad 
man, when he enters the landscape, a sight before the mind's 
eye which dwarfs all earthly visions, even though mountains and 
oceans kindle before the body's eye. Now, as the man is more 
than the landscape, because of the spiritual part of him, so is" 
heart greater than parts, and pure goodness than keen intel- 
ligence. Wherefore, as I have said, it is well that the world has 
busied itself with the goodness of Jesus, and his devotion, hu- 
mility, patience, love, self-sacrifice and steady truthfulness unto 
death. 

Nevertheless, Jesus was indeed, if we may apply the com- 
mon language of life, one of the ablest and strongest-minded 
men that have come forth as teachers in the world. Partly by 
endowment he was so. We have no writings of his ; yet we 
have feats of imagination and composition, which we can not 
think sprang from any other than the central figure whom the 
Gospels set forth. For great is the poetry and beauty in his 
wonderful parables, for which he stands quite alone in the world, 
being the highest exemplar of teaching by parable. Indeed, so 
true is it that no other has equaled or even approached him, in 
this respect, and such a new thing was the parable in Hebrew 
teaching, if we may judge from the Old Testament alone, and 
altogether new in the singular beauty, grace and fitness which 
mark Jesus' parables, that an eminent critic has not hesitated to 
say that Jesus created the parable." Also, his poetic use of il- 
lustrations from nature, such as in the exquisite and unequaled 
passage about the lilies which I have read to you this morning, 

*Renaii, Life of Jesus, chap. x. 



240 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

and the parable of the storm falling on the rock-founded and on 
the sand-founded house, and many other such places, show 
richness and resource of mind. We must do justice to this 
intellectual power and imaginative scope if we would know the 
Master as he was. 

But much more than by this endowment of wit and imagin- 
ation, Jesus was a great and strong man intellectually by virtue 
of his faithfulness or holiness. The power of high morality to 
give intelligence is one of the noble and great facts of life to 
look on. It is one of the crowning proofs of God ; nay, not so 
much proof or ground of inference, as direct sight of God. In- 
telligence flows so straight from goodness that it were a strange 
thing in the world, the like of which I believe never appeared, 
if a holy soul were but a. dull clod without insight or power. 
Howbeit, often the reverse is to be seen — I mean that a man who 
seems very strong and great is but a will-o'-the-wisp, because he 
has no substance of goodness; like Napoleon, who, though he 
shone like a fire in battle, in truth was as foolish a man as ever 
lived. I single not his name for dislike of him, for there are 
many others the like in history; but because his oriflamme was 
so splendid, flashing everywhere in the lead; whereby the truth 
is the more clear, that being without virtue, his flame proved 
but a flickering of marsh-gas. 

Morality confers intelligence and power of mind in many 
ways. It endows the faculty of attention; it strengthens the 
mind to dwell long and intently, to be fixed on the same high 
things continuously. This it does by nourishing force of will 
to apply the mind ; for what is moral strength but a strenuous, 
as well as rightly directed, will? Also moral excellence confers 
this power of mind by setting the soul free from lower distrac- 
tions and desires, so that no longer it is clogged or loaded in its 
flight, but may soar whither the high things call it, carrying no 
weight, but rising freely. Again, by moral excellence, there is a 
constant drawing of the mind by lovely things and themes, so 
that by this attraction the mind continually is dwelling on them, 
and attains that power in them which fixed attention and long 
brooding give. Also, moral worth confers peace and quiet of 
mind, so that by the mind's simplicity and quietude things are 
reflected in it as they are, and the mind is able to think by virtue 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 241 

of the quiet in which it lives. Moral worth also confers health ; 
first health of mind, — I mean vitality, abounding life, prophetic 
power, and harmony of all the faculties within us, each in his 
place in order, and all strong together, so that all work together 
to see the truth, and to know things as they are. Morality con- 
fers also health of body; and this is very important. For the 
mind can work but ill and little in a body poorly quickened and 
having no health to apply to the mind's labor; but more than 
this, the mere strength and vitality of the body seem to give an 
abounding force to the mind, and purity of bodily life conveys no 
doubt a great excellence of intelligence, a power to know. One 
critic has said that no little portion of Jesus' intelligence must 
have come through his lovely harmony by which he kept his 
body as it were a holy temple, wherein the light of the power of 
God could dwell. Also, morality confers intelligence by the 
glorifying and purifying of motive. For when we do earnestly 
wish to see the truth, we see. Intelligence is widened by single- 
ness of eye, by sincerity of moral aim. 

Finally, sound morality helps the intelligence by bringing 
us into harmony with all things in nature, with all the facts 
about us, whether of the material universe or of human history. 
Whereby, first, all things seem to gather themselves to help us, 
because we are in unison with the Spirit that rules all ; and sec- 
ondly, we see the meaning of all things, are instructed, ani- 
mated, upbuilded, able to see things as they are, because we are in 
harmony with the forthcoming of them and with their working 
together, and with the Power that rules them all " with the glory 
of a Father." 

So, in proclaiming Jesus a powerful man intellectually, 
I must lay great stress on the might of high morality 
to create intellectual power. No doubt he shows great endow- 
ments; but plainer still is it that the holiness in him communi- 
cates to the intelligence in him, until the two together make one 
quick large mind, looking at things to see them as they are. 

Now, intelligence is of two sorts, — first, large intelligence, 
secondly, keen intelligence. The large intelligence is marked 
by freedom, by avouchment of the right and the power to think 
for oneself, by affirmance of the obligation and dignity thus to 
think, by openness of mind, by love of truth, by a station above 



242 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

controversy in a calm and quiet air of simple thought for the 
truth, and by trust and confidence in the truth when found, 
that always it must prevail in the providence of God; where- 
fore no human being need take it under his patronage. 
The large intelligence that thus is free always will live grandly 
apart from common and local prejudices, from sects, castes, clans 
and parties, willing to trust itself abroad on the sea of the truth 
of God, knowing that it can float thereon to no desert places, 
but to the garden of the Lord. A large intelligence also is 
marked by large sympathies, by fellowships of humanity, by 
cutting easily through all the walls of names and creeds which 
men have raised to separate one from another. Such intelli- 
gence feels the common heart of humanity beating through all 
differences, and therefore wills to open the arms and take to 
one's heart one's fellow as a man, however he differ in creed or 
church. The large intelligence is marked, too, by reverence. 
The mind then grows as Tennyson sings: 

" Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell, 
Till mind and soul, according well, 
Make music vaster than before." 

Never will you find such an intelligence sneering or scoff- 
ing at views that it shares not, especially if these views be 
sacred to others ; no, but such an intelligence will tread with 
bare feet wherever men have worshiped, even though imperfectly 
and blindly worshiped, and will see the " wings of the Holy 
Ghost stooping unseen," even over Aztec altars. Also the large 
intelligence will perceive the true drift of forces and events, 
knowing in all the transitory, in the local and temporary, the 
one trend and drift of the progress of the ages, the purpose of 
God, which he brings to pass by "impressing his will in the 
structure of minds." 

Now this large intelligence Jesus had, in grand measure. 
He shows it in his freedom, as hereinbefore I have said. It 
blazes out through all the wondrous sentences of the Sermon on 
the Mount. Everywhere he preaches from his own soul. He is 
authority, because like the prophets of old he said, " / say unto 
you." The priests, he said to the people, work in the Temple 
on the Sabbath day, and you hold that they profane not the Sab- 



JESUS OP NAZAKETH. 243 

bath day by doing so; but a greater than the Temple is 
here. By which astonishing and strong, speech I suppose he 
meant the dignity, the glory of the Son of Man, and all sons of 
men by virtue of their manhood, whereby they might say, as he 
in another place, " All that the Father hath is mine," and as 
the son of the Infinite, I am greater than the Temple. 

Again, his large intelligence was shown by his being above 
all prejudices. His broad sympathies reached out to all men. 
It was not a good Jew, of his own people, — to bring forward 
such a one would have been popular, and would have helped him 
in the common mind, — no, but a Samaritan, a despised one in 
Israel, who was the hero of that second greatest parable in the 
world, that of the good Samaritan, he, the gentle-minded one, 
who took up the poor wayfarer and bound up his wounds, and 
did him charity first by his own care and then by the service of 
his purse. I think Jesus made little of the Jewish caste, either 
in his thoughts or in his sympathies, if we may believe what 
seems to shine through these gospels; and I do believe it, 
because also the other side shines through, the Hebraic 
prejudices; wherefore these I ascribe to the followers who never 
understood the Master. Jesus taught that it was not being of 
Jewish blood, or of the chosen people, but being of the heart 
after the Father's own spirit, that should give a man entrance 
into the kingdom; and if this heart-fitness he had not, then 
Jesus said he should be left outside. And should his place be 
empty? No, said the Master, but the Gentile shall come, from 
the east, from the west, from the north and the south, and sit 
down at the heavenly tables with the patriarchs, because they 
have fulfilled, as Paul phrased it afterward, the law in them- 
selves, which thereby became as good a law unto them as the 
Jewish Law. Jesus loved to associate with Publicans and sin- 
ners. Some students of his life have dwelt much on this trait 
in him.. He never seemed seeking " good society;" he loved to 
find himself with the outcasts, the poor, the despised, and espe- 
cially with those whom the Jews called sinners, which is to say 
with those who were lax in the ceremonies and rites of the 
Jewish faith. And he handled all things in that broad way 
which large intelligence follows, as made for man and not man 
for them, as he said in speaking of the Sabbath. 



244 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

It is painful to read that in consequence of Jesus' large in- 
telligence, which so was above all local aims and prejudices, he 
had trouble with his family. We catch plain and sad glimpses 
of separation. He was not at home with his own, sometimes 
not even with the nearest ones; and when he left Nazareth, it 
appears that he withdrew partly because of a family division. 
They followed him not; they believed not in him. When he 
was told that some of his brethren wished to speak to him with- 
out, I suppose he knew it was no friendly message, and that 
they would interrupt his gospel; and he said, " He that doeth 
the will of God is my brother, my mother, my sister." But with 
all this, Jesus was no controversialist or partizan. We do find 
in the Gospels very strong invectives. Jesus could be stirred to 
what John Weiss called "moral wrath." Always the mean, selfish, 
grasping, cruel, hypocritical traits stirred him so. But for the 
most part he lived in perfect calm, it seems to me. I feel and 
see pulsing in his words that one and unutterable faith that 
could wait and be still. His whole manner always is saying to 
me, "It is good for a man both to hope and quietly wait for the 
salvation of the Lord." Always he lived as on the mountain 
height whither he liked to go, where he was lifted up above the 
struggles, jargon and noise of the market-place, and the contro- 
versies of men. When he was led to the tribunal, to stand be- 
fore Pilate, he brought that mountain serenity with him, and 
stood in the silence of the heavens. He was very reverential j 
he never scoffed; he treated with no indifference the national 
religion, but went to the Temple, took part in the ceremonies. 
He saw there the sacrilege, of the Temple defiled, and we read 
that he turned into a fierce giant one day and drove out the 
traders from the Father's house. He saw the true motion of 
his time ; he knew it must go onward with the spirit, no 
longer harnessed to the letter. They asked him for a sign, and 
he answered, " Strange it is that ye know the signs of the 
weather, and if there be a cloud in the sky at night ye tell 
what the next day shall be, whether raining or shining, and yet 
ye know not the signs of these times." And then, says the 
Evangelist, he turned and walked away, having no more to say 
to them, but leaving them to ponder wherein they might see the 
signs of God in those times. 



JESUS OF NAZAEETH. 245 

I turn now to speak of Jesus' keen intelligence. For this 
he had too, — not only the large, noble, glorious kind of intel- 
ligence, but keen and incisive wit. This kind of mental power 
is shown in the quick sifting of arguments, the parrying of op- 
ponents' thrusts, the detection of craft and cunning. Jesus 
shows these traits in great effect. When messengers came to ask 
him, from John the Baptist, whether he was really the Messiah, 
having sent back his answer, he then turned to the people and 
spoke to them this searching wit: " You like not John, — do 
you? He came preaching to you in the wilderness, and you set 
him at naught. And you like not me any better, — do you?. I 
come preaching to you in the cities, and you set me at naught. 
You are like little children who have become angry in their 
games, and one says to the other, We can not say anything that 
suits you nor do aught that pleases you; we piped unto you and 
ye would not dance; when that suited you not, we mourned 
unto you, and that pleased you as little. What can we do but 
stop our games and go away? John came neither eating nor 
drinking, and ye said he had a devil; but when I come preach- 
ing to you, yet eating and drinking at your tables and your 
festivals, do ye like it better? No. Ye say: Behold a glut- 
tonous man and a winebibber, a friend of Publicans and sinners. 
But true wisdom is shown by rational conduct.* 

When once he went through the fields on a Sabbath, 
plucking the corn, and they found fault with him for it, he said 
to them, Have you read your own Scriptures? Is it permitted 
to eat the bread that is exposed in the temple on altars? No? 
But did not David do it once? And ye found no fault with him. 
And the priests work in the Temple every Sabbath day ; yet ye 
hold them free from blame. Well, go and learn what this 
means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." These observances 
are poor helps to doing justice and mercy and kindness. Man 
is lord of the Sabbath, and not the Sabbath of Man. 

One day when they brought a man with a withered hand, 
and then watched him (as always they were watching him with 
cunning eyes, and sometimes trying to trap him, to see what he 
would do or say against the Jewish law), Jesus said to them, 
knowing their hearts, " Shall I heal this man?" Ah, you say 

*Mt. xi. 



246 Jesus of nazareth. 

it is the Sabbath day. Well, how many of you have had a 
sheep fall into the pit on the Sabbath day? Did you not then 
lift out the sheep? And is not a man, then, better than a 
sheep?" 

They came accusing him of casting out devils by Beelze- 
bub, the Prince of Devils, which is to say that they believed in 
witchcraft, as was common among the Jews, and in possession 
by demons as the cause of diseases. Jesus, we may imagine, in 
Socratic way, talked with them thus, as we may gather from the 
Evangelists: Did ever you know a kingdom to stand, one 
part of which was divided against another? If thus Satan 
gives to me to cast out his own minions, tell me how Satan's 
power and kingdom shall stand. Furthermore, am I the only 
one that heals these diseases? Have not your own children done 
so in many cases? What say you of them? If I cast out 
devils by Beelzebub, by what power do your own children the 
like works? But on the other hand, if by the power of God I 
cast out devils, take note of this, ye scoffers, that even now the 
kingdom of God is here among you* 

They came to him once complaining because his disciples 
had been eating improperly, that is to say, they had been eating 
without washing the hands first, which was heavy guilt, a 
dire religious offense, in the minds of the Jews. Jesus talked 
with them thus: Whose rules are transgressed by eating with 
unwashed hands? Is it the rules of the Elders and the Scribes? 
It is so. And which is worse, to transgress the laws of the 
Elders and the Scribes, or the law of God? But did not God 
say by Moses, Honor thy father and thy Mother? Yes. But 
have not your elders taught you that if an old man come to his 
son, saying, I am poor, help me, — the son quickly, when he 
sees him coming, may pronounce a vow over his property, and 
then he is excused from helping his old father? Yes, they have 
taught that. Then I say to yon, that by means of your human 
rules, you are transgressing the laws of God. 0, you hypo- 
crites! well did Esaias prophecy of you, saying, " This people 
draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with 
their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they 
worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of nien."f 

*Mt. xii. tMt. xv. 



JESUS OP NAZARETH. 247 

They came to him once complaining that he gave no au- 
thority for his acts, and asking him cunningly what his author- 
ity was; so that if he gave none, they might say so, and if he 
should say, I have the authority of God, they might accuse him 
of blasphemy. But he was equal to their cunning. He said, 
" I will tell you, but you must answer me a question first. What 
say you of John the Baptist? What was his authority? From 
heaven or of men?" Now they had killed and rejected John, 
and they reasoned thus, If we say that John had authority of 
God, he will say then, Why did you reject him? But if we say 
John had no divine mission, we know not what to do with this 
mob here ; for they call John a prophet, and they will fall on us 
with fury. So they said, We cannot tell. But what a fall was 
this for the elders of Israel, that they, before the people and be- 
fore this country rabbi, whom they had meant to entrap, should 
be driven to avow ignorance as to whether John in truth were a 
prophet; for this was such a point as they specially were to 
judge. What! said Jesus, you, Scribes and Elders, whose very 
office it is to teach the people, to announce the law and to judge 
in religious matters, you can not tell whether a man be a true 
prophet or a pretender? Then you are not fit to be told by me 
what my authority is.* 

Once some enemies who were laying traps for his words, 
asked Jesus whether it were lawful to pay tribute to Cassar or 
not; or, in other words, whether without impiety a Jew might 
pay taxes to a Roman Emperor. Now this was no little ques- 
tion; for, although the Jews had paid tribute to their own kings 
very readily and without thought of profaneness, and even also 
to foreign monarchs, although the prophets severely had de- 
nounced such alliances, yet now the people were in such ferment 
of religious zeal and expectation of the Messiah as never before, 
and it had become a part of their faith and worship to abhor 
Roman power and the tribute to it. Whence, I say, it was no 
little question that they asked Jesus; for, if he answered that the 
tribute to Caesar was lawful, then he was no good Jew, and 
would be hated by the people, but if that it was unlawful, then 
he would be rebellious toward the Romans and could be accused 
to them. Yet this was no strait at all to this prophet, because 

*Mt. xxi. 



248 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

he had so keen intelligence. Wisdom and understanding not 
only made him master of that occasion, but also of the wide 
principles pertaining to it. There is a great realm of thought 
contained in the few words of Jesus' answer; to show which I 
will expand them thus: Bring me a coin of the realm. Here is 
an image and writing on it. Whose image and whose super- 
scription? Then, when they answered Caesar's, he replied to 
them, If, then, you have accepted Caesar's coin, do you owe 
nothing to the empire that has issued it? This money is a sign 
and a means of the civil order. You pass it from hand to hand, 
buy and sell with it. What is this but to enter the civil order 
and live in it? How can you pay tribute to it against your 
religion, say you? Hearken and understand: Religion means to 
do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, which a 
Jew may do in his soul even under the Roman eagles. If, then, 
we have a duty to the State because we have accepted the State, 
do that duty, and also keep in your hearts the spiritual 
duties of religion. " Render to Caesar the things that be Caesar's, 
and to God the things that be God's." I know not that man's 
wisdom ever has found aught to add to the precepts locked 
in Jesus' few words at that moment. His questioners, when 
they heard it, marveled and left him and went away, the apostle 
says. So may we marvel at the mental scope, but go not away, 
but draw the nearer and admire.* 

But I must leave these incidents of keen intelligence which 
gleam through all the gospel stories, instances of quick wit in 
this great prophet. I turn to Jesus' love of nature. It was a 
part of his intelligence that he was a tender lover of nature. 
He alone among the Biblical characters dwells lovingly on 
flowers. The Hebrews, at least in their literature, were not 
lovers of flowers. They were adorers of the sublime and great 
scenes. Mighty, high and awful scenes they speak of continu- 
ally and sublimely; but not of the delicate, tender, and sweet 
things lovingly. How Jesus dwells on the blossoms in that 
beautiful song, as truly it is, of the lilies of the field! He 
draws many parables and illustrations from nature, from 
birds, grass, wheat, weeds, the sowing and seeding of the 
fields, the mustard seed and the tree from it, and the birds that 

*Mt. xacii. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 249 

lodge in its branches. All this passed before his eyes and en- 
tered his heart and came out in his teaching. 

It was a part of Jesus' intelligence that he had great hu- 
mility. Always this must be so. No man will be large in 
mind who is proud and haughty in spirit. It. can not be; 
for never can he learn; and besides, never will he value 
things in their right proportions and measures. With hu- 
mility always goes spirituality, trust, faith. All of these were 
parts of Jesus' mental endowment. Continually he was going 
away into the desert to pray. When he was asked who was the 
greatest, he took a little child and set him among them, and 
said, If you take not the kingdom of heaven in such spirit as a 
child's, you shall never know what heaven is. When some of 
his disciples wished to be told who should be greatest among 
them, he answered, He shall be greatest among you who is 
willing to be the servant of you all. " Two sparrows are sold 
for a farthing," is his simple expression of faith, " and not one 
of them falls to the ground without your Father. Fear not; ye 
are of more value than many sparrows." When he sent out his 
disciples to preach, he said, Be of good cheer, and be never 
afraid; and when you shall be called before the judges, this you 
shall find, that " it shall be given you in that same hour what 
you shall say; for it is not ye who speak, but your Father that 
speaketh in you."* 

Jesus said, " All that the Father hath is mine." Seems 
this an awful and divine claim on his part? Think you that 
only a special kind of being could say such a thing? Nay, I 
would say it myself, following humbly yet bravely the Master. 
I know not whether I should say these words in the sense of the 
Evangelist. It is not possible to tell. The words were spoken 
long ago, and written down under different scenes. Perhaps, as 
one interpreter thinks, the saying means that Jesus had omnipo- 
tence on his side, and that God in time would establish his 
place and power. More likely the words, as they stand in the 
fourth Evangelist, mean the possession by Jesus of the counsels 
of God, his sharing of the divine counsels, by virtue of being 
the Divine Word, — as Paul says, " In whom dwelt the fullness 
of God bodily." But if either of these was the sense in the 

*Mt. x, 19, 



250 JESUS OF NAZABETH. 

mind of the fourth Evangelist as he wrote the words, the ques- 
tion still is, What meant Jesus by them? — if he spoke them, 
as well we may believe he did. For my own part, I think they 
may have had to the mind of the Master, with his great soul, 
searching wit and large intelligence, a meaning more vast than 
even the disciple understood. The Evangelist interpreted the 
saying in agreement with his own special theory of Jesus, a 
view which neither of the other gospels partake. But Jesus was 
above all thoughts of kingdoms or powers. No; the saying is 
like his other words, "A greater than the Temple is here." 
Why may not his pure spirit have soared to the height of the 
thought of the religiousness of all things? Nay, shall I say 
why not? I think he did. His recorded life holds proofs that 
he held this idea and lived in the light of it, as in the sun. 
Therefore, I think that all the things of the Father seemed to 
him to be his things, because he knew that naught was uncared 
for nor unclean, nor could slip away out of the eternal counsels, 
that all things reflected the Infinite wisdom and love, and that 
all things belonged to the children of God to use and enjoy in 
their measure, all things, all thoughts, the mind, soul, body, 
reason, life, activity, imagination, sense. Truly it would seem 
the Master must have meant all this, although the words come 
to us through the mind of the fourth Evangelist, who certainly 
has much altered in meaning what he gives as from Jesus. But 
this, at any rate, is the comprehensive righteous rejoicing sense 
which I find in the words; whereby anyone may use them and 
find life and joy in them. They mean the religiousness of all 
things. They say, " What God hath cleansed, call not thou 
unclean," but rise up, possess and use it, for it is thine to use 
as thou art his, but to use also as his, and to take it therefore in 
holy fear. These words embody a divine peace, which broods 
over all things as the Spirit over chaos, bringing forth faith, light 
and joy. All is harmony and peace. Part is not made by God 
and part by some evil being, but He rules all things " with the 
glory of a Father." This did the intelligence of Jesus see and 
know. All things were his; nothing was too sacred; nothing 
was too little to be sacred, nor aught too great to be opened to 
him; naught was profane; there was no forbidden tree of 
knowledge. If, as the same fourth Evangelist records, Jesus 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 251 

said, "I and my Father are one," it was in this same sense, sub- 
lime, awful, devout, humble. A perfectly pure soul may have 
this courage toward God, for this is what the aeons of the earth's 
gestation have brought to pass in the soul, as a little child 
toward his father, unafraid, though also standing in reverence 
and awe. To Jesus, yea, to the human soul, 

" All mine is thine, the sky-soul saith ; 
The wealth I ana must thou become ; 
Eicher and richer, breath by breath,— 
Immortal gain, immortal room." 



I have said that I take the image of the Master siniply as 
he is set forth in the gospels, not undertaking any criticism of 
the records, but trying simply to declare the character therein 
shown. No doubt many misunderstandings gathered around 
that great life. The disciples I think never were masters of 
their own prejudices, never able to judge him and see him in 
sublime stature, as he was, either morally or intellectually. 
Still, in the main, a man was there who was like the portrait 
given of him, and his character is the only explanation of the 
amazing picture set forth in these wonderful, while yet untu- 
tored writings. Still less need I any criticism of the records in 
turning now to speak of the tenderness of Jesus, the qualities of 
his heart. These shine with a soft and lovely light. I have 
only to bring forward the touches of feeling and delicate shades 
of tenderness, of compassion, of devotion, of great love, which 
fill the gospels. 

Jesus had friends. This is to be noted first, as running all 
through the gospel picture of him, bringing to sight the qual- 
ities of his heart. It may be said of him that he was attractive. 
He had the power of drawing people unto him. An invaluable 
gift, not always possessed perhaps by those worthy of it in vir- 
tue of noble qualities. And yet when that attractive force exists 
not, must it not be because of some defect, some human lack? 



252 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

In the character of Jesus there was a certain fullness which 
drew men wonderfully. We read in the records that " the com- 
mon people heard him gladly." When rejected in high places, 
in courts, palaces, synagogues, eagerly he was sought after by the 
people, who always were forming throngs about him as he 
stood at the roadside or on vineyard terraces, or when getting 
into the boat he spoke to the people a little way off, so that he 
might not be pressed on. And they "heard him gladly," feeling 
the kinship of the spirit that was in him, the good message that 
he had ; yet, I think, drawn most and most touched by the won- 
drous deep fountain of tenderness in him. Constantly he was 
sought, and invited to houses, to repasts, to feasts, to social par- 
ties. , Often when he had spoken to the company in the open 
air, some one, pressing forward, sometime the proud, the titled, 
the rich, just as often the poor, the outcast, the diseased, the 
Publican or sinner, begged Jesus to go home and eat in his 
house, that he might talk more with the great and gracious 
wayside rabbi. Women loved and trusted him equally with 
men, which I count a great virtue, or sign of virtue, in him, 
showing not only a nobility of soul, but also a pure tenderness 
of heart. I like that term which the Arabs have for high- 
minded men, " A brother of girls," — a man, they say, " who 
has a heart pure to love all women, and an arm strong to defend 
them." 

Jesus had also his special friends. He that so drew people 
about him to listen to his word, and expand under the charm of 
his influence, knew how to give his heart with special tenderness 
to those who could draw near to him by peculiar delicacy of 
kindredness. Among the chosen twelve he had one, a beloved 
disciple, who lay near him always when they reclined at meat 
together, rested in his bosom, received his most cherished coun- 
sels, and gave and took constant tenderness of personal commu- 
nion. Jesus was a very dear friend in the house of the humble 
family at Bethany, whither he used to go often, to converse with 
them, to be their guest, to cheer them, and I doubt not to be 
cheered, as often he needed in his very lonely ministry. When 
Lazarus died, we are told that coming to them and seeing the 
grief of the sisters and friends, " Jesus wept." Thackeray has 
said that a man is most a man when some persons call him un- 



JESUS OP NAZARETH. 253 

manned; so was the tender heart of Jesus then. It will not be 
strange doctrine to you, in me, whatever it may be in others, 
that I accept not the actual raising of Lazarus from the dead. 
I look on that story as one of the mythical elements in the 
gospels which a great reverence for the character of Jesus called 
into being after he had passed away. How could the strong, 
calm intelligence of Jesus have wept for a passing sorrow which 
so soon he was to change, yea, even at that moment, into re- 
newed and startled joy? I prefer the simple record that he 
wept. For all the miracles which the gospels hold, I would not 
give up one drop of those tears, or make them unbefitting the 
facts. Besides love for the family, Jesus .seems to have had a 
very tender friendship with Mary, the sister of Lazarus. There 
have been students of the life of the Master who have thought 
that his love for her was of a very special, close and delicate 
kind, that indeed she was more to him than belongs to usual 
friendship or sisterhood ; of which the record wholly is silent. 
But we know that Mary loved to sit at his feet with simple hu- 
mility listening to, his talk, adding thereto, we may believe, not 
a little; for out of her answering love often the eloquence of 
devout silence, but also sometimes the eloquence of self -forgetting 
speech, must have come. Always this has seemed to me a beau- 
tiful touch in the life of Jesus, given us in this slight story of 
the family at Bethany, whither continually he was going, where, 
no doubt, in his lonely and uncheered ministry, very healing and 
gracious was the welcome and love. And tenderly he returned it. 
We may gather hints of the tenderness of his spirit from 
the nature of the miracles. I have counted (making allowance 
for some critical views which aver some two or three stories to 
be different accounts of the same facts) thirty-six miracles. Of 
these, twenty-four were healing acts; and besides these, we 
read continually of the very many healings which never were 
recorded in detail; for wherever he went they brought the sick 
to him. We read,many times how they thronged to him, by 
the seaside, the lakeside, in the city, in the houses where he 
was, that he might lay his hands on them simply, and bless, 
cheer, strengthen, or even heal them by the medicinable health of 
his soul. Thus he seems to have gone about doing good to the 
suffering, always ready to give heed to human ailings. 



254 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

Jesus was also a loving friend of children; which I count 
no little in the record of his tenderness. Wherever he went 
they seem to have trooped to him, running into his arms. We 
may gather more from two or three touches in the record than 
they give literally or completely. The mothers loved to come 
with their children, being at home in that gracious and gentle 
presence; and he laid his hands on the children's heads (accord- 
ing to the custom of the rabbins, a lovely custom, as I have 
seen it in a synagogue of the ancient ritual of the Jews wherein 
still is preserved the lovely old traditions) and blessed them, 
giving them some little loving word of benediction ; after which 
the mother, rejoicing, would carry the child away, feeling that 
holy hands had laid some special gift of consecration or of safe- 
guard on the infant's head. 

Jesus' tenderness flowed out to all the people everywhere. 
I think he seldom looked on human beings, either separately or 
when many were gathered together, without a sense of awe and 
wonder, and a yearning at his heart toward them. It is re- 
corded that once, looking on the multitude who came to hear 
him preach and expound, his heart was moved, and he yearned 
toward them because they seemed to him as sheep without a 
shepherd, longing to be taught and lo! none present to preserve 
them, and in danger of being scattered abroad.* He was the 
" good Shepherd;" not " a hireling," but the Shepherd " whose 
own the sheep are;" and the good Shepherd " giveth his life for 
the sheep.f" 

Jesus was very sensible of the beauty of humility, and of 
that humble fidelity which out of sight or in shadow does its 
simple task, neither asking praise nor bemoaning a lone lot. 
Once when he stood beside the Treasury, as the records have it, 
which means the place where the chests were into which the 
Jews were used to cast tribute for the Temple service, he saw a 
poor woman approach who was a widow; and she dropped in 
two of the very smallest coins of the realm, all but worthless, so 
little was their value, two mites says the record. Whereupon 
Jesus called his disciples specially to him, we read, and bade 
them take notice of the poor woman, and see how the gold was 
showering in from the many who passed by and made their 

*Mt. ix., 36. +Jh. x. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 255 

tribute to the Temple, — thinking, no doubt, many of them, that 
the more they gave, the greater the merit. But Jesus said, I 
tell you that this poor woman who out of her necessity hath 
wrung this little tribute, for love, hath paid more than they all. 
He always believed so supremely in the value of the tender 
feelings, the purpose, the love, the heart in any act, that never 
he counted anything costly which was a means of spending the 
heart-treasure which so much more was costly. So that when 
once he was at table in a house, reclining at the meal, and a 
poor woman came and broke over his head an alabaster box of 
precious ointment, and his very disciples grumbled thereat, 
thinking it a waste because the ointment might have been sold 
for much money to be given to the poor, Jesus rebuked them. 
It was the outpouring of her heart, he said, — more costly than 
any spikenard. The record has it that Jesus added, " In that 
she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it to prepare 
me for burial/'* But however these words may have been 
added after the end came, as very like they were, since we know 
that events threw back their long shadows into the gospel 
records, still the answer shows how tenderly, how delicately 
Jesus took the offering, counting nothing waste that so outpoured 
the soul. A like-scene, by some expounders thought to be a 
different version of the same, occurred in a Pharisee's house; 
where being at meat, a weeping woman, who had many faults 
and sins to answer for, the record says, came, touched deeply, 
perhaps having seen him elsewhere, full of that gentle presence, 
drawn irresistibly, and weeping for her own ills of soul, broke a 
like precious vase of ointment over his feet, washed them with 
her plentiful tears, and then with her long and woe-disheveled 
hair, wiped away the drops as if she meant not thus to wash 
the Master's feet with the brine of her repentance. What said 
the Pharisee? Only that if Jesus had been a prophet, he 
would have known what manner of woman she was who thus 
was offering him the incense of her love and the worship of her 
penitence. Yea, truly; and being a prophet he did know, and 
being a prophet of God he despised not, but accepted. With his 
great tenderness and love he pierced to the pure sorrow of the 
soul which then was in his presence, whatever may have been 
the strife or sin of the times that were gone.f 

*Mt. xx vi. tLc. vii. 



256 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

These touches in the record show us how gentle, how 
human, how tender, how personally loving, was the soul of the 
Master. We are not surprised to read that the love which always 
was a wayside offering to those whom he met, burned like a holy 
light at the end, covering the cross with glory. As the last 
hours drew on we read of that tender lament over Jerusalem. 
Approaching the city, he halted for a little time on the hill, and 
looked out over that lovely view. He saw the ancient city of 
the Kings reposing in its beauty and glory, with its shining 
roofs and pinnacles, its streets ringing with business, its Temple 
full of incense and imposing worship. Mayhap he looked for- 
ward more than back. Perched on that little eminence, he sat 
on a high place of prophetic sight, of that far-seeing which is 
given to the holy and the true. He may have seen in spirit 
then the overthrow, the destruction, and interpreted the signs 
of the times to know how the eagles were gathering and leading 
the nest to come swooping down on that lovely array of palaces. 
He cried in the tenderness of his spirit, " Oh Jerusalem, Jeru- 
salem! thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are 
sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children 
together even as a hen her chickens under her wings, and ye 
would not! Behold! your house is left unto you desolate!"* 
When through those same streets he was led like a lamb to the 
slaughter, and women who had learned to love him in many 
lessons, in many interviews and places where they could feel the 
influence of that spiritual presence, pressed around him weeping, 
many of whom he knew no doubt, perhaps all those of the name 
Mary, mayhap even the one who " stood the cross beside," and 
that tender friend from Bethany, he turned and said unto them, 
11 Daughters of Jerusalem," — as if still thinking of the city of 
his love and pride, — " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, 
but weep for yourselves and for your children."f On the bitter 
cross all enmity cleared away, if ever he had felt any. Having 
come to a clear knowledge of the thing that was set for him to 
do, which mayhap he had struggled over in those hours in 
Gethsemane, not seeing clearly at first, then on that exaltation 
(as thenceforth it became to all the centuries, though up to that 
moment but a common Eoman gallows), he said, " Father, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do."J 

*Mt. xxiii. 37. +Lc. xxiii. 28. JLc. xxiii. 34. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 257 

All through his life, which thus ended in one burst and 
glow of forgiving love, Jesus was a lover of the outcast, of the 
sinful, of the poor. I do believe he never knew what it was to 
shrink from a human being because the man was a sinner, or 
because others shrank from him, or because he was an outcast 
or an alien. Sometimes cimning persons came laying traps for 
him, to see how he would treat just such people, even those that 
were held most in horror or disdain. There is such a story in 
the first eleven verses of the famous eighth chapter of the Fourth 
Gospel. Xow I must remind you that these verses form no 
proper part of the New Testament considered as a collection of 
writings. They have no rightful place in the text. They are 
omitted now by all worthy critical editors of whatever doctrinal 
view. They are absent from four out of the rive great manu- 
scripts, and from others of high authority. Many manuscripts 
which contain the passage, mark it as suspicious. It is found 
also in different parts of the gospels, as at the end of the fourth 
gospel and after the twenty-first chapter of Luke. Also, it is 
full of notable differences of texts (various readings). Some 
ancient notes mention the omission of the passage from many 
manuscripts. Filially, it is wholly unmentioned by many church 
Fathers of the highest antiquity and authority. Therefore, there 
is no doubt the passage is uugenuine. Probably it was added to 
the text in the third or fourth century. Well, what of all that? 
Still it seems to me a scrap of true tradition, a precious bit of 
the history of the Master. Jt well accords with his character as 
elsewhere shown. It is consonant with his merciful justice and 
with his tender sympathy for shame. Probably it is, I say, a 
scrap of tradition written down at a late time (for none of the 
Evangelists seized on it), introduced by some copyist perhaps, 
who thus preserved for us an incident in the life of the Master 
which in some way escaped the stream of tranmission that fed 
the gospels. And what an incident it is! A touch of unpar- 
alleled beauty, of moral sublimity! Evidence not only of a 
tender heart, but of the swift and incisive intelligence of Jesus 
of which I have spoken. For always he knew and spoke the 
right word at the moment, saying just what cleaved its way to 
the soul, seized on the heart and wrung it. Open your eyes on 
the picture. Here is the crouching and shamed woman; Jesus is 



258 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

near, kindly tender, his thoughts fixed first on the shrinking 
form before hirn, wandering from her mayhap to the repent- 
ant woman who had loved much, to whom much it is said 
therefore was forgiven. Perhaps he was able beyond what 
we can conceive to pierce the soul of that trembling human 
creature and see it pure and virgin at the core, and thence follow 
outward the lines of the pitiful face until they led to sore and 
sad experiences legible there to his eye. On the other side, the 
Pharisees, cunning, pitiless, dragging the poor victim to open 
misery; not for justice, no, but that they might trap the new 
prophet into some departure from Moses' Law, and thus wreak 
on him their hatred and anger. Well, they found no weakness, 
no paltering, no fear of them; no, nor of their law, nor of evil 
report. He was as a throned judge. He knew where the real 
wickedness lay at that instant in that company, and whose 
hearts were black. The crowd heard with consternation that 
lofty answer, whose memorable power equally shielded the inno- 
cent and defeated the plotters, — "Yes, yes, I know Moses' Law; 
she shall be stoned; let her be stoned; begin now, and let him 
that is without sin among you throw the first stone." Straight- 
way eminence in shame made its way from the shrinking woman 
to the sneering crowd. They hung their heads and slunk away. 
Then said Jesus to the woman, "Where are your accusers? 
Are they all gone? Has no one passed sentence on you?" She 
answered, "No one, Sir;" and Jesus said, " Neither do I sen- 
tence you. Go, and sin no more." 



" To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, 
All pray in their distress. 

And to those virtues of delight 
Return their thankfulness. 



For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, 
Is God our Father dear, 

And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, 
Is man, his child and care. 



For Mercy has a human heart ; 

Pity, a human face ; 
And Love, the human form divine 

And Peace, the human dress. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 259 

Then every nian of every clime 

That prays in his distress. 
Prays to the "human form divine, 

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace. 

And all must love the human form 

In every race and zone ; 
Where Mercy. Love and Pity dwell, 
. There God hath built hi's throne." '* 

Who will be surprised that a soul of so far-reaching tender- 
ness led a life of much sadness and loneliness? For not only 
was he so quick and so tender in feeling, but this heart of his 
was united to propnetic intelligence, so far stretching ahead that 
few could understand, few keep up with that spiritual pace, and 
he went lonely all his life. Truly "he came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister," comforted but little, I must think, 
even by the greatest and best near him. He said of himself, 
that he had not even what the foxes had, and the birds of the 
air, a place where to lay his head, — a place, we might say, 
where to lay his head on a human heart. " He was a man of 
sorrows, and acquainted with grief." At last he came to that 
scene in the Garden, a wondrous story of his tenderness and 
feeling, where I suppose there came rushing on his soul the 
memories of " the acceptable year of the Lord," in the live 
little villages around the Lake of Galilee, where "the common 
people heard him gladly," where he preached fi-om Sabbath to 
Sabbath, and often on other days by the wayside as he walked, 
a wandering Rabbi. He wondered, I think, whether he needs 
must drink the cup, whether he might not go back to those 
lowly scenes, live in calmness and quiet, and teach his message 
and fling it on the air to go as it might, and walk in peace. 
That must have been the Garden struggle, 1 think. In those 
solitary wrestlings, in those lone prayers, he learned that the 
cup was held to him by One who had the right to hold it. whose 
he was, and he knew that to go back to peace and simple daily 
joy would make him a runaway from God. So there he stayed, 
and fought the agony of the struggle; for he had a clear pre- 
vision of what awaited him now in a few short hours. He came 
back and found his few chosen friends unable to watch out his 
short prayer-time, heavy with sleep. He roused them once, but 

*Williani Blake. 



260 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

afterward when still they were overcome, he said to them gently, 
" Ah well! it matters little; the end is very near; you will have 
need of all your strength; sleep on, and take your rest." 

Think often, I pray you, and ponder well how strange it is 
that we must he fed hy holy sufferings. Truly man is great; 
but what winder? Think of the food he is fed on! If the mind 
thrive on noble and delicate viands, as the body does, it is no 
wonder there is so much joy, so many glad, so many good ; for 
truly the mind of mankind feeds on the sorrows and sufferings 
of ages past, and on this meat has grown so great. Strange, 
and to me a moving sight, that thus the world is happy and 
glorious by the pain of the best of the world. One of the old 
saints exclaims, " If truth live, I live; if justice live, I live; and 
these by any one's sufferings are enlarged and enthroned." It 
is always so. The seed is not quickened unless it die. Some 
precious fruit must be torn to pieces by the earth's chemical 
fingers, if a noble tree is to grow. Instantly starts up before 
the mind the train of the greatest and best, whose lives thus 
were lain in the earth in sorrow to be quickened and raised in 
beauty for far ages to feed on. Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, 
Jesus, and many faithful humbler teachers, how they wandered 
and taught, scorned, exiled, set on, slain! " The noble army of 
martyrs" for church, science, country, liberty, — it is by their 
ashes, never cooled, that we are warmed. We sit down before 
them many times not thinking what is burning in those embers! 
The sorrowful biography of one will answer for all — the biography 
of this holy man of Nazareth. " What pleasure did he taste," 
as saith an old writer on his life, " what inclination, what appe- 
tite, what sense did he gratify? How did .he feast or revel? 
How but in tedious fastings, in frequent hungers, by passing 
whole nights in prayer, and retiring for devotion upon the cold 
mountains? What sports had he? What recreations did he 
take, but feeling incessant gripes of compassion and wearisome 
roving in quest of the lost sheep? * * * What music did 
he hear? What but the rattlings of clamorous obloquy and 
furious accusations against him? To be desperately maligned, 
to be insolently mocked, to be styled a King and treated as a 
slave, to be spit on, to be buffeted, to be scourged, to be drenched 
with gall, to be crowned with thorns, to be nailed to a cross, 



JESUS OF NAZABETH. 261 

these were the delights which our Lord enjoyed, these the sweet 
comforts of his life and the notable prosperities of his fortune. 
Such a portion was allotted to him, the which he did accept from 
God's hand with all patient submission, with perfect contented- 
ness, with exceeding alacrity, never repining at it, never com- 
plaining of it, never flinching from it or fainting under it."* 

Seems it strange that if we dance it must be on loving dust 
and heroic graves — if we set up a high staff on which to spread 
a flag it must be sunk deep in mould where saints sleep — if we 
make merry and hold a festival of joy, it is to celebrate some 
great suffering? But how close pain and pleasure lie in this 
world, as said Socrates when the manacles were taken from his 
legs in his prison; for we cannot have one but it has a mate in 
some form of the other, which must be entertained also. Cer- 
tain joys involve certain sorrows by necessity. As in the great 
world it has seemed needful hitherto that some shall agonize for 
the joy of many, so in our little spheres we cannot have an 
unmixed delight. But this truth is an atmosphere into which I 
lift my head with a sense of life in the air, and oriental power, 
as kine snuff the morning breeze. I see it is the highest joys 
which lie close to pain, the purest sorrows which run like tribu- 
taries into a sea of bliss. What serious joy when parted lovers 
come once more together! Yes, but not to be had without the 
parting? Thanks are fervent and great the joy when a son is 
born into the world, but therewith begin anxieties so stinging 
and solicitudes so endless, that no one can look on a child with 
a quiet mind, and parental privilege is " pleasing pain." What 
need indeed, thus to state kinds of joy which carry pains in 
their girdles? It may be said that by a strange reaction joy and 
sorrow always attend closely on each other. When we have 
passed some gay and sparkling hours, and the time has flown, 
friends departed, the quiet come, the lights are out, the wit and 
song silent, suddenly we feel a sadness creep over us, a shadow 
descends on us, a dear sorrowful memory obtrudes, an unac- 
knowledged foreboding arises, and we feel dimly how pathetic 
pleasure is, frisking like a lamb under the infinite sky which 
holds the solemn secret of to-morrow. But when we have con- 
sidered duly that paiu and pleasure are sisters going " coupled 

*Isaac Barrow. 



262 JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

and inseparable," and have given due weight also to the fact that 
it is the best and noblest spirits that always will suffer most of 
"fruitful sorrow," still it seems strange that we must build our 
holiest joyfulness on the agonies of a saint. There is some- 
thing in it hard to understand, a dim, dark order of God. Yet 
so it has been always. Trace up the sanctities, the securities, the 
laws, the social rights which invest us with our dearest bliss or 
power, — we shall come at last to where a prophet was slain for 
those things or a bevy of obscure heroes offered up their bodies 
in fire for them. Why cannot we be joyful all together, ceasing 
all proscription, anger, persecution, in this world? Must it be 
always as it has been? Must we go on crucifying the elder sons 
of the human family? Surely it will be wise and well in us to 
see to it that if indeed pain lie so close to pleasure in this world by 
a deep law of nature, on the other hand pleasure shall lie close 
to pain by our own good efforts. Joy and sorrow indeed may be 
inseparable by nature, but I think it is left with us to choose 
whether the one or the other shall prevail the more. If we were 
but faithful to our small martyrdoms in our lot day by day, there 
were no need then of the sacrifice of the greatest and best. 
Think what would follow if only all the world were simply 
patient for a generation; if there were no hatred, no hasty or 
envious or unfair judgments, no slanders, no ferocious passions; 
if all fever to get the better of others, to grow suddenly rich, to 
get something for nothing, were to cease; if every one (as so 
many obscure heroes do) took up faithfully and simply his own 
burdens, " revering his cross," lifting whatever load lay in his 
way, bearing it on with patience and virtue, keeping up a simple 
cheer in his face with some eye-light to spare for others ; if all 
the world, I say, were thus faithful to the daily burdens, one kind 
here, another there, if all thus were to suffer generously and 
humanely each in his lot in the divine order, think what a society 
would arise! What a gentle human nature! Then when the 
saint should come, guilty of no crime but loving his fellow-men 
and speaking the truth in simplicity, men would have a spirit 
capable of listening and thinking. They would not gather in 
mad mobs, crying, " Crucify him ! crucify him! " It is a serious 
thought for us that if we learn not to bear patiently and duti- 
fully the small crosses, yea, or the heavy crosses, of our daily 



JESUS OF NAZAEETH. 263 

lives, truly we know not how far our failure may stretch. We 
help keep the world in that spirit which crucified Jesus and 
burned the saints, and will set loose yet other martyrs to heaven 
on like wings of pain; yea, and daily crucifies unwitnessed and 
unfamed faithfulness. 

Here ends my discourse of Jesus. I have tried to speak to 
you of the prophetic glory of that grand true soul, his courage, 
his devotion. Also then of his intellectual strength, his broad 
mind, his wide sight, his incisive wit. These I ascribe much to 
his holiness, which always is a fountain of intellectual power. 
Finally I have spoken of the tenderness of heart of the prophet 
of Nazareth. This too, let me say in a word, was a source of 
his strength of mind and great knowledge. They who feel shall 
be they who know. Tender lovers are true seers. It is the 
tender and not the passionate lover, the tender heart that 
reaches out with vast pity and enfolding love, with a great awe 
of all human presence, and with a joy of kindredness, — they it 
is who shall know the issues of human life, and bathe in the 
deeps of its questions, fears, hopes, joys, sorrows. An old 
poet says, 

" How wisely nature did decree 
With the same eye to weep and see." 



SACEIFICE. 



I will take for my text that saying of Paul's which I have 
read you, " I beseech you, therefore, Brethren, by the mercies 
of God," — that is, on account of the mercies of God, which are 
reason for all service and offering and devotion, — " that ye pre- 
sent your bodies a living sacrifice," — that is, that we so conduct 
our lives and so use the body with which the spirit has been 
furnished, that thereby we shall offer it day by day, not a sacri- 
fice in process of which the sacrifice is dead or dying, as in the 
ordinary sacrifice of the Temple, but a living sacrifice, — "holy 
and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,"* — 
that is, a rational worship for you, the word translated service 
here meaning worship. I will add to this, from which I wish to 
speak of the nature and duty of sacrifice, another text, drawn 
from a story in the life of Jesus, in the fourth chapter of 
Matthew, " Angels came and ministered unto him." 

This was the reward of temptation resisted. The essence 
of the temptation was the seduction of ease, power and influence. 
These were resisted in favor of a life of self-sacrifice. Such 
plainly to the conscience of Jesus was the way by which he 
must work. He must give up many things for the one great 
object of bearing his testimony, of speaking his own soul's word, 
and doing his own special ministry of good to his fellow-men. 
Then came the reward. The choice being made, angels came 
and ministered to him. 

This sacrifice of which Paul speaks, which Jesus made 
with the result of the ministry of angels to him, is of two kinds. 
First, a sacrifice when we give one thing for the sake of having 
another. It may be that we value both things, the one we give 

*Eom. xii, 1. 



266 SACKIFICE. 

up, and the one we gain thereby. It may be that we value one 
and not the other; and surely we shall value one much more 
than the other, if we give up one for the other. In this kind 
of sacrifice, the two things, the one given up and the other one 
which is attained by the sacrifice, lie on the same plane. But 
secondly, there is another kind of sacrifice, namely, that in 
which we sacrifice ourselves, and this action also is of two kinds: 
when we sacrifice some lower gratification for higher ends, the 
lower gratification calling to us and pulling on us with great 
stress at the time, and being very near at hand, the higher end 
being far off and more spiritual, more beautiful it is true, but 
only when the eye is set very earnestly to behold it; again by 
another kind of sacrificing, when something of our own or 
pertaining to ourselves, is given up for the good and joy of 
others. 

Now, sacrifice, of whatever kind, carries its reward with it, 
and each carries just the kind of reward that pertains to it. 
"Whenever sacrifice is made, we have the gain which belongs 
to that kind of sacrifice. If it be a sacrifice of one object for 
another, then we have the object for which we gave up some- 
thing else. But whenever a noble self-sacrifice is made for high 
ends, for unselfish devotion to a great and good thing, or for 
others' benefit, then there is the added reward, and sometimes it 
seems the only reward, of angel ministration. In plain prose, — 
if that be liked better, — then come a sweet peace and joy into 
the mind, and then arise also wonderful helps about us, and aid 
gathers marvelously about our feet, because all things do work 
together for good to those who yield obedience, pouring out 
themselves to help the world. We just have passed through the 
season of Lent, ending with the beautiful festival of the Easter 
on last Sunday. During this season many churches, and 
the practice of many persons, make a kind of sacrament of 
sacrifice founded on the story of the forty days of Jesus' fast in 
the wilderness. It is to be feared that this is a form which ends 
very often in formality, for that by many people the thought of 
sacrifice is brought no nearer, and no better understood, and 
indeed no real sacrifice made, for all the Lenten prayers and 
observations. But there is much to be said of sacrifice, and 
especially of that kind and character of it which is self-denial 



SACRIFICE. 267 

for the wide world's sake. This I will take for my morning 
subject. 

Sacrifice as a philosophy is very simple. It is nothing 
more than a statement of our limitations, — simply this, that we 
are finite, and not infinite. The principle is, that " as we can- 
not have everything, we must give up some things for the sake 
of having others." Now, as we cannot escape the necessity of 
sacrifice, as it is certain indeed that we must give up some 
things for the sake of having others, because we cannot have all, 
it is plain that this becomes a test and measure of our mode 
and kind of living. For first, we are measured by the kind of 
things we choose. We may choose the mean things, the paltry, 
the showy, the gratifications which have none of the joys of 
mind, unworthy of the devotion of a thinking creature, ease, 
indulgence, luxury, cheap influence with our fellows, — one of 
the things most often chosen, to the sacrifice of all great, glori- 
ous, enduring helpfulness, — amusements, ornaments, the trifling 
things by the wayside of life. But such choice is not the sign 
of a noble spirit ruling in the breast. It is an attempt to shine 
by tinsel and rule by pretence. The true dignity of a man is 
not to think of winning respect, of admiration, of making show, 
nay, not even before his own friends, nay, I would say least 
of all before them, because to those nearest his heart he should 
be most solicitous to be simply himself. But a man's true 
dignity is to set his choice so high that perforce he must leave 
the lower things if he will follow that choice. This is the one 
great value of making the right choice, to set one's ideal so high 
that there is no other way of following it but by leaving lower 
things. I have known a man some circumstances in whose life 
embittered his heart very much, so that he brooded sadly on 
the wrongs that had been done him. But finally he said, — I see 
that if I go on growing bitter in this way, it is death. Now, how 
shall I escape these thoughts? I see no way but by filling my 
mind with other thoughts. Therefore whenever I walk forth, I 
must have some object of thought, something I am solving, 
something I am composing or some good things preparing, that 
by dwelling on them my mind may be kept too high for these 
bitter broodings. By such means a man chooses the grace 
belonging to those powers of mind and heart which mark him as 



268 SACRIFICE. 

human, the virtue and beauty of generosity, of broad and grow- 
ing intelligence, of stores of knowledge, of springs of thought, of 
mindfulness of the poor, the sad, the needy; and afterward, 
when he hath followed this mindfulness, as he will if it work in 
his heart, being keen, then memories of the hungry fed, of out- 
casts rescued, the forsaken cheered, the fallen lifted, humane 
causes watched and aided with his labor and with his substance. 

But again, we are measured or tested not only by the nature 
of the things we choose, but by the energy of our choice of them ; 
that is, by the amount or value of other things which we are 
willing to give up for the things we choose. I know no means 
of measuring the force and power of choice but this question — 
What is the value of the things which we will give for the chosen 
thing? It is true dignity, having made a choice, to make it 
with energy, in a noble way, understanding that it is a choice, 
whereby some other things must be given up for the things 
chosen. There is a kind of eagerness, greediness, much to be 
seen in life, wherewith filled a man thinks he can have all 
things, the high and the low together, giving up no thing for 
any other. But this is delusion. It weakens us. Being first 
born of our weakness, it weakens us the more. We must know 
what we do, and make the sacrifice cheerfully, heartily, loyally, 
not complaining of the alternatives, but seeing in the beginning 
all that a noble choice involves, and then going on with a bright 
face and beauty of contentment. I know of naught more con- 
temptible than making a good choice, yet day by day whimpering 
at the price of it. We should choose nobly, as the poet clung to 
his song, which he loved and did cling to, though he said it 
" found him poor at first, and kept him so." 

The reason why men see no more clearly that they must 
face a choice with its consequences, is that they bring not clearly 
into thought the philosophy of sacrifice. They reflect but little. 
First they follow circumstances, without striving to turn circum- 
stances as much as may be to a noble choice made in the region 
of thought, w^ich is free of circumstances. Afterward they 
think they can have all the pleasant things without choosing 
firmly and decide dly the best things. These errors make them 
the sport of events, or the victims of the lower objects of life, 
because these lower objects always seem to cost the least. For 



SACRIFICE. 269 

it is a strange and momentous truth, that sacrifices of the higher 
self, of the glories of the thinking part, the experiences of 
the heart, the raptures of the soul, sacrifices which at last leave 
us, if we do make them, wretched and wrecked, mere stranded 
hulks on life's pleasant lea, — these, I say, seem not in the 
beginning painful sacrifices, more often only postponements. 
How many men have said in the beginning of their career, " I 
cannot afford now to be generous. First I will earn much money, 
then I will be generous." But ah! the poor philosophy; the 
little understanding; the postponement, which is destruction! 
When they have gotten the much money, they have lost equally 
the wish and the power to be generous. So it is with these 
puttings off, these thrustings away into the future of the good 
that appeals to us now, while we go after other things, and never 
return to that parting of the ways — for oh ! we never come the 
same way twice, — where the choice was made so gaily, so 
thoughtlessly, so sadly. 

But I must say that not every giving up of one thing for 
another, that is not every payment, is entitled to be called sacri- 
fice, in the high, particular and glorious meaning of that word. 
The payment of the price of anything is entitled to be called a 
sacrifice only when it diminishes our privileges or our comforts. 
Notice that, I pray you, — payment is sacrifice only when it 
diminishes our privileges or our comforts. Very many persons 
think they have excellent reason why they should give naught 
in aid of any noble work which cries to be done, if they can say 
that they cannot do so without making their comforts and 
privileges less ; which merely is saying that in this life they 
know no duty of sacrifice. This thought of sacrifice brings 
forth the question, What ought we to live for? Yea, it brings 
home the duty of every one to ask that question of himself. 
This 1 have said to you many times, and so many times that I 
fear me you will grow weary of me in this advice; but I know 
naught deeper in life than the need, if we would live well, to 
ask ourselves that question. Yea, I would say that every morn- 
ing it were well, if with the spring of the body into a new day; 
we awoke the soul with this thought, saying, Come, soul, gird 
thee! Look forth into the coming hours! Keason of thyself! 
Say what we ought to hve for this day. 



270 SACRIFICE. 

Says William Law, in his "Serious Call," " I cannot see 
why every gentleman, merchant or soldier, should not put these 
questions seriously to himself: What is the hest thing for me 
to intend and drive at in all my actions? How shall I do to 
make the most of human life? What ways shall I wish that I 
had taken when I am leaving the world? Now to be thus wise 
and to make thus much use of our reason, seems to be but a 
small and necessary piece of wisdom. For how can we pretend 
to sense and judgment if we dare not seriously consider, and 
answer, and govern our lives by that which such questions 
require of us? * * * * But if people will live in so much 
ignorance as never to put these questions to themselves, but 
push on a blind life at all chances, in quest of they they know 
not what nor why, without ever considering the worth or value 
or tendency of their actions, without considering what God, 
reason, eternity and their own happiness require of them, it is 
for the honor of devotion that none can neglect it but those who 
are thus inconsiderate, who dare not inquire after that which is 
the best and most worthy of their choice." 

I have been told of an incident in the life of a minister, 
before he took on him what should be so holy an office, — and 
yet not holier than any office which each one may hold to in any 
daily walk; for all is holy. When a young man he was fond 
of sports and social pleasures. Without thought of the matter, 
he was falling gradually into reckless and unworthy habits. 
But one evening, while waiting for a companion in the public 
room of a tavern, he began to read from a book which happened 
to lie on the table, and he came to this sentence: "In morals 
there is no standing still; either you are growing better, or 
growing worse." He lay down the book; for the first time 
mayhap in his life, he asked himself the questions what he ought 
to live for, and what he was living for. Was he growing better? 
Plainly, not. Was he growing worse, then? The question 
stopped him, rising before him. He stood still. On the wall 
of that question his course of life appeared, like a hand of flame 
writing. There was a moral awakening in him, which made 
him a new man, and one of great earnestness, conscientiousness, 
and helpfulness to others. Such things prove that if we ask 
ourselves the question, What ought we to live for? — we are also 



SACRIFICE. 271 

putting ourselves in marching order, to go forth beyond our- 
selves, mold the choices and help the lives of others. By divine 
laws we are our brothers' keepers, in ways and degrees we dream 
not of. If the choice which must be taken by us, be a thing so 
momentous, surely it is a solemn thought that we must affect 
the choice for others by our own choice for ourselves. Every 
day we are a portion of the circumstances which move some 
one's choice of^a better or a worse life. We are preparing to 
affect the choice of some soul which surely is coming, coming 
in the distance, coming on with the very certainty of God, 
straight to us to receive our affect, as surely as the earth goes 
its way by gravitation. Ay, sure it is that we, even we, shall 
stand some time at the parting of the road for some person, 
when we know it not, and turn him in the way which he will 
follow thereafter, — who knows how long, or whither? Where- 
fore, as I have said, it were well if every morning we asked 
ourselves what we ought to live for this day. That were indeed 
an unclosing of the eye of the soul, fit to go with the opening of 
the body's eye into the new creation which springs for us every 
dawn. If we were to ask ourselves that question, consider — 
would not life begin to take on a dignity, grace, elevation, espe- 
cially a glory of sacrifice and of self-sacrifice which would be 
regeneration indeed? 

Sacrifice, the kind of it, the nature of it, is what sets the tone 
of a house and home. This is a good thing to remember, touching 
this counsel that very well in the morning we may ask ourselves 
what we ought to live for this day. Sacrifice it is which sets the 
tone of unselfishness in a house. Wherever all those that dwell 
together do resolve in the morning that they will think of others, 
and not of themselves, and will give up little wishes that others 
may enjoy the more, surely that must be a day of unselfishness, 
and many such days make the tone of the home unselfish. 
Secondly, by wise and noble choices, sacrifice sets the tone of 
the house; that is, by the things we sacrifice for other things. 
You will find that you may judge yourself and others by things 
emphasized. Find out what things you lay stress on; you will 
begin to get into your souls, and see of what stuff you are. Thus 
it is that sacrifice lies at the base of all noble home life, — first, 
by introducing therein the tone of unselfishness, without which 



272 SACRIFICE. 

there is no bliss at home ; secondly, by founding the household 
on the great things of life by means of the wise choices which 
sacrifice the small things to the great. 

Sometimes it is needful to abridge not only our privileges, 
but our comforts. We have to make very grave choices some- 
times. What should be the rule? This is the rule, — In 
sacrifices, choose whatever raises most the spiritual, the intel- 
lectual level, and let the pinching come on the lower wants. 
Apply this rule, and what a difference in our lives! What 
different furniture of our houses, our tables, our feast days, our 
pleasures! What sadness to see children whose tricksy attire 
shows how far above the garments of the soul the mother has 
set 'their outward look. For life is too full to be rich in both 
raiments. You will find no woman able to be very careful about 
trimmings, shapes, cuttings, richness of stuffs, and at the same 
time gloriously intent on the souls of her children. When the 
mother keeps hands and feet so busy that she has no time for 
reading or for friendship, when the father toils in like manner, 
coming home too tired for gentle humors whether he would or 
not, too weary to sit him down to talk with his children or read 
to them from some good book, not bringing a sunny face, never 
stopping at the door when he is tired, with his hand pressing 
the handle before he opens it, to say, " Now, come up Soul, and 
make ready for this entrance; we go into a holy place; let it be 
with genial face and gentle feet," — surely when the mother and 
the father make this mistake, it is a sad and fruitful evil in the 
house. To forego the earning of much money, is one of the 
greatest sacrifices that any man can make. Yet how can he 
escape the need of that sacrifice if he will enrich the soul of his 
child by contact with his own kept strong enough, unwearied 
enough, thoughtful enough, for that power? Oh yes, I know 
what the exactions of life are, and how hard in practical strug- 
gles to do this! But I ask you, Is it not to be kept before the 
mind as the ideal? Is it not too holy a claim to be lost, to be 
forgotten and overlooked in the dust of the day's toils? Sure 
it is that we must make sacrifices, whether we will or not. We 
cannot creep into corners or caves from them. We must make 
choices. Look to it that we abridge our comforts or privileges, 
if need be, for the higher aims. 



sacelfici:. 273 

To live in a home where everything is had, where no priva- 
tions are known, where nothing ever is given up, I am sure is a 
sad thing for character. In this way again sacrifice gives tone 
to the household and the home, and is indeed the main moral 
force that gives a noble tone to the house. Look on the nature 
of those who have been brought up with many privations, many 
sacrifices firmly met, and the nature and the reasons of them 
pointed out to the children, that they must give up one thing 
because without that sacrifice they cannot have another, and the 
other is the better, being the mental, the spiritual, the glorious, 
the beautiful ! I think you shall find in such characters strength 
and beauty, and an eye open to the glorious meaning of life, as 
they grow old. I was told once by a woman in mid age that 
she could not remember, front her earliest experience, an 
unsatisfied want. I told her not my reflections, but I had made 
up my mind long before that she was a sad sink of selfishness. 
Perhaps she had unwittingly shown me the root of the distortion. 
I knew another person who always had had everything cleared 
from his way. One lover after another, he told me, had made 
it a care and business to clear every hard thing and every hin- 
drance from his path. All ! it was not plain that he had learned 
so much as to think of clearing away from the paths of others 
thereby, or had been nurtured to a humble tenderness of spirit. 
I care not what the riches of a family are, moral health requires 
they should deny themselves something, whereby to serve the 
world the more. If there be such riches in the household that 
the family can afford well to give what the world calls a generous 
share to the good causes which humanity now has in hand, still 
I say they should give more, until they have to pinch somewhere 
in that giving: for moral health is impossible if a man gives of 
his overplus only, and never feels that the giving has touched a 
comfort or even a plea sine. 

Again, sacrifice is the only valid test of personal love. The 
only question in the heart's affections is, — How much will we 
sacrifice ourselves for the loved one? I can think of no other 
way to judge what your love is worth, and no other sign wherebv 
to know whether it be that valid and true thing which deserves 
to be called human love, or that base pretence and mean metal 
which is only "passion to possess." If you are willing to 



274 SACRIFICE. 

sacrifice but little, then be assured that you love yourself rather. 
And no one loves another much, who loves himself more. 

But sacrifice has a peculiar reward in itself, which is worthy 
of much reflection. I mean what I may call the principle of 
reaction, a law by which angels come and minister to one who 
has made a noble choice. They come too in greater and greater 
troops as life goes on, wherein the choice is repeated or con- 
tinued daily; for it is reiteration of noble choice that at last 
makes all the life noble and high. The* sacrifice enriches in 
our eyes the object attained by it. First we make a sacrifice 
because we value the object, and then the sacrifice makes 
us value the object more. This law brings us swiftly back to 
what I have said of sacrifice, that it is a test of affection. We 
see how close this doctrine of sacrifice lies to the nature of the 
heart; for we shall find it is the same law with the law of the 
affections, namely, that we tend to love those whom we benefit. 
If we sacrifice anything for one, we shall find the tender emo- 
tions begin to bloom. Think what a great and beautiful fact of 
mind this is, what a wonderful reward. If we prize any great 
thing so much that we will bear loss and pain for it, that days and 
nights of toil seem not too great a price, that strength is freely 
given, and long watching, waiting, anxiety, hope, prayer, men's 
scorn or pity or anger, dared for it, and all this seems little to 
pay, so great is the object in our mind, one would think that 
such a valuation were enough, and that when the great object 
of so much pains and longing were attained, the reward already 
would be great enough. But to such sacrifice, angels come and 
minister in the shape of this law of mind, which pours, as from 
a crystal flagon, a yet dearer draught of congratulation. For 
what reward, what riches, gain, requital, can equal the rapture of 
finding suddenly the dear object grown dearer still, still lovlier 
and greater in our eyes than we dreamed, and worth more even 
than we were struggling to pay? Yet this is what happens to 
noble sacrifice. Heaven pours on it this last elixir of reward, 
that we find the object more precious even than we thought, that 
instantly it glows with such new beauty as makes the pains we 
pay for it only like breezes from the West where those hard days 
are setting, pouring aromas of new soils and wild flowers over 
the accomplishment of our toils. This is a law of mind on 



sacbipice. 275 

which we may linger lovingly, and behold with a certain awe 
this increase of value of what was so precious before, the value 
greater now because we have poured out our hearts for it. 

If what I have been saying be true, how can we expect 
anything to thrive nobly, especially any great moral cause, the 
increase of liberty, light and love in the world, or how can we 
think the fellowships formed for these objects will be strong and 
cheerful, unless these great things be loved so well that we will 
sacrifice for them? Let us ask now, each one himself, How 
much do we sacrifice? Take the question home to you. Let me 
for once, — for I am not given to it, — play the part of the old 
preaehers, who always came to a close by making a very per- 
sonal application of the sermon. Remembering my definition 
of sacrifice, that the payment of the price of anything is entitled 
to be called sacrifice in a high sense only when it diminishes 
our privileges or our comforts, let each one ask himself how 
much sacrifice he makes habitually for the great things of life 
and the great causes of the world. How many sacrifice any 
privilege, let me ask, any privilege, once a year? How many a 
comfort? How many deny themselves a strong desire, a great 
pleasure, how many have definitely something less than they 
want, or even than comfort dictates, and feel the pinch of it, once 
each year, in order to help the world along? How many who 
have few pleasures at best limit them by even a very little? 
And how many who are busy, important, influential in affairs, 
give themselves, — which is the greatest sacrifice, greater than all 
the rest beside, their time, personal thought, — this worth all 
their money ten times told, — their labor, their love, their 
strength, to religion and humane labors? I think if we ask 
this question earnestly, we shall find it is no wonder that these 
noble things thrive so little and are so long a- coming, and 
Paradise so far away. If we will sacrifice thus for great 
and good things, we shall love them the more. We shall re- 
ceive the reward. We shall give up things for some noble 
object because of its truth and greatness in our eyes, wherein 
instantly we shall be rewarded by loving it the more in propor- 
tion to the things given up for it. It may be that this law 
is behind some of the strength that has carried a martyr into 
the fire. We shall bear causes at heart, if the heart has bled 



276 SACRIFICE. 

for them. "We shall lift them high by the strength of our arms. 
We shall not fear to work then with a few, as lovers of all 
great and good things which are costly of heart, soul, time, 
must work at first. Yes, — we cannot see the end of the time 
when few will gather to a cause which demands sacrifice. But 
even if we be alone, what then? There are souls who dare to 
stand alone; like Jesus, " when Christianity was in a minority 
of one." But no one will count the ranks who weighs the soul. 
" One with God is a majority." A German poet says, 

" How inany times would Christ 
Still suffer willingly upon the cross, 
Only to save one sinner, the last man, 
The prodigal son, in body and in soul ! 
, Let none then even speak the name of Christ, 

Who will not try himself, too, so to live, 
And so to each surrender everything." 



OLD AGE. 



" Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, aud honor the face of the old 
man." — Leviticus xrx. 32. 

Tlie text is eloquent. It is placed immediately before duties 
of hospitality, — "Aud if a stranger sojourn with thee in your 
land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth 
with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou 
shalt love him as thyself ; for ye were strangers in the land of 
Egypt: I am the Lord your God;" — as if we should regard the 
old man, being so near heaven, as a stranger with us, to be 
served with hospitality. 

When Theodore Parker preached of old age, he asked " all 
old persons to forgive the imperfections " of his discourse, since 
he could not like them speak from experience. "Pardon me, ven- 
erable persons," he exclaimed, " if I mistake! I read from only 
without; you can answer from within." He said, however, that 
he thought he knew something about the character of venerable 
men and women: for he "was born into the arms of a father 
then two and fifty years old, who lived to add yet another quarter 
of a century thereto," and his " cradle was rocked by a grand- 
mother who had more than four score years at his birth, and 
nearly a hundred when she ceased to be mortal." I, who need 
still more indulgence in undertaking my subject, am not able to 
lay claim to such qualifications; although my grandfather died 
at ninety-six years of age, sitting erect; and at five and seventy 
years, finding a Kepublican Irishman in trouble at the polls, he 
sheltered him with his own fists while the man dropped in his 
free ballot; and at four score and five he was fully alive and 
abreast of political thought. But my chief plea for indulgence 
is that I love the aged. No beauty is so wonderful and rich; 



278 OLD AGE. 

and if the old be wise, the wisdom is very deep. " To know how 
to grow old," says Amiel, " is the master-work of wisdom 
and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living." 

It is a reason for study of the art of growing old and of the 
worth of the result of it, that we must grow old whether we do 
it well or ill. Other arts may be let alone by those who like not 
to learn them; but this one must be practiced by every one, with 
all the world to witness. Whether with grace or awkwardly, 
with glory or shame, still we must do it. 

It is a reason, too, to study old age that it is pictured but 
darkly and has little joy in men's views of it. " If the question 
be," says Emerson, u the felicity of age, I fear the first popular 
judgments will be unfavorable. From the point of sensuous 
experience, seen from the stieets and markets and the haunts of 
pleasure and gain, the estimate of age is low, melancholy, and 
sceptical. Frankly face the facts, and see the result. Tobacco, 
coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilu- 
tions: the surest poison is time. This cup, which Nature puts 
to our lips, has a wonderful virtue, surpassing that of any other 
draught. It opens the senses, adds power, fills us with exalted 
dreams, which we call hope, love, ambition, science ; especially, 
it creates a craving for large draughts of itself. But they who 
take the larger draughts are drunk with it, lose their stature, 
strength, beauty, and senses, and end in folly and delirium." 

" We must admit," says another voice, t( that the darker 
coloring is that which prevails the most in ancient and modern 
writings. Nor is this strange, when we consider how the sadder 
portions of that failing time force themselves upon the notice 
and the sympathies of men, while its more cheerful features have, 
for the most part, to be sought out and appreciated by the higher 
sentiments of our nature. In the Old Testament, the bent and 
wasted forms of the heroes of its history are apt to make but 
melancholy pictures. There is Isaac with his dim eyes; and 
Jacob with his gloomy retrospections; and Barzillai, in the midst 
of his joyless riches that could not restore to him a single one of 
his former delights, at only fourscore years refusing to go up 
with his triumphant king to Jerusalem because he could not 
taste his delicacies nor hear the music of his sweet singers; and 
that king himself, the great bard and conquerer, brought down 



OLD AGE. 279 

to imbecility and the most pitiful dependence." Among moderns 
it is the same. Old age is " crabbed," "sans everything." " What 
can an old man do but die?" is the tone and teaching of the 
many poets and, I fear me, the general feeling of men. 

For these reasons it is good to consider well of old age. 
And here at the threshold we come on one feature of it in which 
poet, artist, philosopher, have delighted, however they have taken 
little comfort in it otherwise. I mean the beauty of old age, its 
physical decorations; for there are as many beautiful old people 
as yotmg people, and the adornments of age are made very 
conspicuous by Nature. Old age is the fruit of life. It has all 
the loveliness, when perfect, of the mature and completed pro- 
duct. It is a great mistake to suppose that the hale and hearty 
years of mid age are the fruit of this world's life, and old age the 
decay of the fruit. This is so no more than hot noon is the 
consummation of the day, and not rather the soft and elevating 
splendor of the sun-set; no more than the proud and spreading 
stem is the destiny of corn, and not rather the full and bountiful 
ear, a hundred acres condensed in the product of one. 

Observe what wondrous chemistry, what mysterious physics 
bring to pass the maturity of this fruit of life. Even in outward 
nature, who can trace the ripening influences of atmosphere, 
earth, waters, and credit each with its due effect on form, color, 
and flavor? What a beautiful product is a perfect peach, — the 
fairest growth and best representative of the mingled serenity 
and sweetness of our favored temperate climate. Let it hang 
well ripened on its tree in a September stm, and what a perfect 
object it is! — its pink-white side, speckled with brown dots, 
shading into the rich blush of its sun-ward cheek, the whole 
softened and protected by a delicate garment of wool thought 
necessary in nature's careful nursery. The slightest puncture, 
like the faintest attack on a loving heart, reveals such juices as 
ancient Olympus never dreamed of. Each day of sun, each 
second of the sun's altitude, every summer cloud that drifted 
over it, every bird that shook the atmosphere around it or alighted 
a moment on the trembling twig, every film and feather of mist 
from the earth, every raw fog, the evening's coolness, the dew's 
bath, the rain from the south, the cold storm, the western breeze, 
every blast from the chill east or blustering north, — all these 



280 OLD AGE. 

have warmed, cooled, fanned, jostled, dried and moistened the 
peach into its perfect ripeness. But if these influences cannot 
be traced in the coarser realm of matter, if on the wings of the 
wind and down the rivers of rain come ten thousand workers to 
the waiting fruit, invisible, hurried by sails of web or urging on 
their " viewless steeds " with " whip of cricket-bone and lash of 
film," and whence they come, whither they go, or what freight 
of form, color or taste they bear, we cannot tell, how much less 
can we entrap the artizans that chisel the splendid countenance 
of noble age! I once heard a mathematician say that, as we 
think and perform all our acts in time, and as time is a matter of 
quantitative relations, the mathematician yet would have a 
formula for the poet and the philosopher. I know not. The 
triumphs of mathematics have a heavenly quality. Yet I will 
expect this mathematics of the soul, when first I have beheld the 
formulas for a human face, where some of the forming elements 
are outward and material. All the elements that worked together 
to perfect the peach, have wrought also on the face of age. It 
is weather-beaten and weather-mellowed by many changing 
years. Meantime the soul works outward. The face of noble 
old age is the product of a world of inward experience, which 
beautifies the countenance by as much as it enriches the spirit. 
There is a curious argument which once was in some favor 
against the philosophy called Materialism, drawn from the 
phenomena of memory. If the soul were material, it was argued, 
memory could be only an entry of some nature on a tablet; and 
no matter how small the mark or notch by which such entry 
should be made, the number of our experiences finally would 
cover the tablet entirely with the marks or notches, so that no 
more could be added and we could remember no longer. I can 
not rest on this argument; for the human face in age refutes it. 
•For on it is chronicled every wave of feeling. It is that veritable 
tablet of the soul. In it is lined and notched every passing 
emotion, albeit there is no microscopic sense to resume them in 
memory. In the aged face are the heavy curves of care, the 
furrows of toil, the brow spanned with thought, study and 
speculation; the lines that mark intelligence and generous ideas, 
evidence of a soul free and enlarged; the firm mouth of 
tempered will, the clear front of righteousness, the inimitable 



OLD AGE. 281 

marks of purity, the chastened lines of love, joy, anxiety, longing, 
watching, losing and sorrow; the deep print of a forgotten 
despair trenching on the record of rapture; the track of humility, 
the arches of faith and worship; and over all the golden beam 
of benevolence. Every experience, as it comes and goes, leaves 
some new treasure of expression. Such rare faces are seen 
sometimes. Whoever sees will acknowledge that no beauty is 
like to this, nor will wonder that often it engages the most lov- 
ing labor of the artist. This beauty is garnered morality, the 
spiritual beauty of honesty become physical and visible. Old 
age is the engraving of the soul's habitude, long a-making and 
by many slight touches, but deeply cut at last. It has been said, 
finely, " Time has the same effect on the mind as on the face. 
The predominant passion, the strongest feature, becomes more 
conspicuous from the others retiring." 

Here we enter the inner court of the subject of old age, the 
moral points of it, beauty of soul, freedom, honor. There is, 
indeed, one grace of character which finds in old age its only 
perfect instance; I mean unzdftsh ess. This is not much to be 
expected in children. In youth it is but a duty whose observa- 
tion confers not so much grace as its omission deforms. But 
what a lustre unselfishness adds to old age! How angelic and 
god-like does age appear when by long self-denial and discipline 
it has become very nature to give of itself. Then patient, loving 
age is seen holding in tender consideration the young and rpst- 
less, forbearing in restraint, active in sympathy, anxious to 
hide its own weakness or soberness, thus to cast no shade on 
gaiety, quick to find excuses which never it found for its own 
errors in youth, never seeming to think that age should be 
served, but only that it should have learned better how to serve, — 
as I have seen in a crowded car an old man or old woman 
rise to give a seat to a tired young mother with a child in her 
arms, while young men sat still indifferent. All this, truly, is 
grand and noble, able to compel high strains or homely elo- 
quence. What a visible immortality hath love! It is said well, 
— " Every one may have observed, who would, that the memory 
is the first of our better powers to yield to the pressure of age. 
The judgment is the last to give way. The affections resist it 
forever. The inference is obvious enough. We may attach too 



282 OLD AGE. 

sensitive an importance to the first of these. The last is the 
immortal sphere in which we are lovingly to dwell; and it is this 
that calls for our chief concern." 

On the other hand, how repulsive is aged vice, of whatever 
kind. How fearful in appearance ! What discord ! What 
blackness against white! What contrasted degredation! — silver 
hair, like a cloud of purity, covering intemperate disease. There 
is one evil, one mean, damning vice, one that more than any 
other, I think, palsies the soul, chokes the springs of life, dooms 
the whole being to death, which is peculiarly offensive in the 
aged. I mean avarice. This is contemptible enough in the 
young or the maturing man ; but a kindly heart will find some 
excuse for them in the world's ambitions, which are all before 
them. Money will buy a home, comforts, power, influence, and, 
to our shame be it said, office, court, homage. But what excuse 
or palliation for sordid age! I know of none but grovelling 
habit, which rather is shame than excuse ! The paltry prizes or 
goods of ambition are past. If still old people grasp, hoard, 
dole out gingerly a pittance for their needs, clutch and gloat 
greedily in the very jaws of death, the sight is shameful and 
revolting. Painters understand this truth; they always paint 
misers old. 

Eespect and veneration is a right of age like a victor's right. 
Age has passed the trial and come forth conqueror. The battle 
has been fought, strong temptation overcome and its strength 
harvested. We hope the young may conquer; we know the aged 
good have conquered. Confidence is not invited, but compelled. 
A bright, hale, cheerful, beautiful old age is the sure pledge of a 
pure, temperate, industrious, high-minded youth and middle life. 
Therefore in that touching scene where the simple-hearted Adam 
pleads to follow his young master and urges on him in his need 
the money long hoarded from his wages, and strives to put out of 
view his extreme and failing age, Shakespeare makes him refer 
as his sole argument to the temperance of his life: 

" Though 1 look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, 
Nor did not, with unbashful forehead, woo 
The means of weakness and debility. 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty, but kindly." 



OLD AGE. 283 

Emerson says: " I count it another capital advantage of 
age, this, that a success more or less signifies nothing. Little by 
little, it has amassed such a fund of merit, that it can very well 
afford to go on its credit when it will. * * * * 

Every one is sensible of this cumulative advantage in living. 
All the good days behind him are sponsors, who speak for him 
when he is silent, pay for him when he has no money, introduce 
him where he has no letters, and work for him when he sleeps." 

To a like purpose another writes: " It is well worth observ- 
ing how a reputable man, though with no qualities or services 
to give him any special consideration, by merely continuing to 
live, adds every year to the estimation with which he is regarded. 
His kind looks are the more prized. His wise counsel, if he has 
any, is more respectfully waited for. The information furnished 
by his longer experience is gathered up and remembered. If he 
is put to trials, there is an unusual sympathy with him. If he 
bears himself stoutly, and shows a cheerful brow, a feeling of 
admiration stirs in us, and we welcome as peculiar sunshine the 
smile that comes to us from over so long a journey of years. His 
dignity, if he has any, has acquired new rights. His commen- 
dation, if we can obtain it, seems to borrow the power of a 
blessing. We are not surprised at the Hebrew idea of a pro- 
phetic endowment imparted to the patriarchs ; for his very time 
of life is of itself a sort of holy office. He has not improbably 
outlived some things that were less worthy in him, and lived 
down others that once rose against him. If he has done this, it 
is an excellent achievement. If he has had no occasion to do it, 
that is more laudable still. He may speak of himself as upon 
the downward slope of the hill. It is common to speak in such 
a figure. But he does not appear so to his younger companions, 
who only look up to him the more. And unless our churches 
are a vanity and our faith a pretence, unless we have been 
deceiving others and ourselves with unreal promises, we ought 
to say rather that he is higher up on that mount of testimony 
which has God's cloudy glory at its top."* 

Sad is it when the reverence due to age is dropped from the 
manners of middle-age, and the respect due to middle-age "shuf- 
fled off" by the young. " Thou shalt rise up before the hoary 

- — *N, L. Frothingkarn, 



284 OLD AGE. 

head and honor the face of the old man". Keverence for old age 
always has been accounted a virtue, and in some times and 
places it has endowed manners with a singular charm and woven 
into the family life a stripe of the silver of the aged head. But 
when this reverence is neglected, then are perceived bold faces, 
loud voices, sordid manners, mean levels. Life is despoiled of 
its grace, beauty, delicacy ; for these qualities come of the acknow- 
ledgement of superiority, of venerableness, of the sacred in what- 
ever form. Let the young pay respect to the experience and the 
thoughts of elders; let the youth of twenty years defer modestly 
to the good man of twice his age, and reverently to three score 
years, and with veneration to four score. Then come a lovely 
harmony, an excellent fitness, a becoming carefulness, fair 
manners, and a pervading wisdom into social life. These, like a 
parade of disciplined troops, decorate the young while they do 
honor to the veterans. But it is only disorder, anarchy, when 
the rank and claims of the old officers who have earned victories 
are disparaged by the young who are but just uniformed. The 
young who are noble enough to be modest (which in truth is 
much nobleness), will rise up with sincere observance before the 
hoary head, and listen at the side of experience. 

To the young, age speaks plainly the lesson of self-culti- 
vation, knowledge, mental strength. Solon said he grew old 
learning something every day. As the physical powers wane 
and supple youth takes on a stiffness, we shall be miserable if 
our strength has been evaporated instead of translated into 
mental forms. The whole course of life should be a changing of 
physical into mental power. Cicero tells a story of an athlete 
who, when he was old, looking at the exercises of the arena, shed 
tears as he gazed mournfully on his own arms, saying, " Alas! 
these now are dead." " Not truly so much those," exclaims the 
indignant philosopher, "as you yourself, fool! For never were 
you enobled from yourself, but by your sides and your arms." 
" Years make not sages ; they make only old men." I have met 
this wisdom, that age is to be encountered with the whole being 
and met on all sides, by keeping every faculty of us in " parallel 
vigor," the body by exercise, the mind by study, the heart by 
loving. 

To the old, age brings the rich reward of previous industry 



OLD AGE. 285 

and the knowledge that still they can be active in learning; that 
the cultured and studious mind is spared to them; that only 
unused powers soon die; that when field and counting-room tax 
too much, and more than needful, a less supple frame, persuits 
of high reward and mental training, begun as the occupation of 
small leisure, may grow to be the glory and joy of age, the pre- 
servers of its mental power and serenity. It is a beautiful old 
story that Sophocles, immersed to the very verge of life in the 
composition of his tragedies, and seeming to neglect in his high 
calling his family affairs, was brought before the court by his 
children and charged with imbecility, so that a guardian might 
be appointed. Then the aged poet made no reply to his accusers 
and addressed no argument to the judges, but, unfolding the roll 
which he carried, read to them his last finished tragedy, and 
asked simply whether that was the song of an imbecile. And 
the judges left the old hero where he rightly belonged, at the 
head of his family fortunes. 

I take a good page of the feats of the aged, though I know 
not the writer, and cannot acknowledge his service by name: 

" My thoughts have been lately turned towards an account, 
that might be made very interesting, and would of itself be full 
of encouragement, — that of the intellectual exploits of the aged. 
More than sixty years had turned their backs upon Bacon and 
Leibnitz and Locke, more than seventy upon Kant and Keid, 
when their most memorable writings were begun. But these 
were philosophers. I will remember, then, that the sun of more 
than three-score summers was shining on the darkened eyes of 
Milton when his Samson Agonistes, and the great sequel to the 
greatest sacred epic of our language and of modern times, sprung 
to light. St. Augustine revised for circulation the works that 
amaze modern scholarship with the profound intricacies of their 
subjects and the huge volumes of their contents, wdien he was 
seventy-three years old. Cassiodorus, a statesman before he 
became a monastic, was ninety-three when his favorite study of 
Language found him still employed with his pen. The most 
learned of the Koinans, Varro, was an octogenarian when he 
wrote his treatise on Farming ; and, best of all, it was dedicated 
to Fundania, his wife, at whose instance it was composed. The 
most illustrious scourger of Roman degeneracy, Juvenal, was but 



286 OLD AGE. 

little short of that age, when his thirteenth and fifteenth satires 
showed that nothing of the former vigor or skill was lost. 
Strabo, the prince of Grecian geographers, was still further ad- 
vanced when his folios were first taken in hand. Aristobulus, 
one of the generals of Alexander the Great, made it the amuse- 
ment of his eighty-fourth year to write the history of his young 
commander. Plato was laboring cheerfully upon his books of 
The Laws, at a period of life when the ninetieth Psalm, if he 
cOuld have read it in its untranslated Hebrew, would have 
pointed its grim text at him, but in vain. Sophocles, the warrior 
dramatist, wrote his '(Edipus at Colonus' at the age of ninety; 
and the critics who find it somewhat tamer than his '(Edipus 
King,' find only the natural difference between a palace and a 
cottage scene, and between the Theban hero himself in his mar- 
tial and his secluded days. There is nothing in the piece that is 
unworthy of its author's fame. Isocrates, Milton's ' old man 
eloquent,' spanned almost a century, and kept his reputation to 
the last. At the age of eighty-two he composed the masterly 
oration in which he defended his profession against the asper- 
sions of Plato. Then there was Theophrastus, the deciple, 
friend, and successor of ' the mighty Stagirite,' to whom that 
most philosophic mind of the Grecian world committed his writ- 
ings. He was a scholar and a teacher, and something better 
than that, a man of great public and private service. Tradition 
assigns to him an age further advanced than can be soberly 
believed in ; and when he left the world, it was not as if deliv- 
ered from a prison, but taking a reluctant farewell of light." 

To these ancient names it needs but a glance of memory to 
add many others which are close at hand, and even our eyes have 
seen their shapes, — Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Furners, 
Browning, Tennyson, Gladstone, Bismark, Hugo, Garrison, 
Josiah Quincy, John Adams, John Quincy Adams. 

Cornaro's happy praise of his old age is over-long for .this 
place, but so beautiful and inspiring that I will venture on it; 
for one may bear cheerfully to be a little over-freighted with 
riches. The passage is from George Herbert's translation of a 
tract of Cornaro on " Temperance and Sobriety." Cornaro had 
spoiled his health by rioting in his youth; but he recovered 
himself by strict living, making " the measure of his whole day's 



OLD AGE. 287 

meat, viz., of bis bread and eggs and flesh and broth, twelve 
ounces exactly weighed;" whereby within a year his health 
was confirmed; and so light of heart and light of body was he in 
his new temperance that thereafter he " never went a foot out of 
the way." Thus he discourses of his old age: 

" But some, too much given to appetite, object that a long 
life is no such desirable thing, because that after one is once 
sixty-five years old, all the time we live after is rather death than 
life; but these err greatly, as I will show by myself, recounting 
the delights and pleasures in this age of eighty-three, which now 
I take, which are such as that men generally account me 
happy. 

I am continually in health, and I am so nimble that I can 
easily get on horseback without the advantage of the ground, 
and sometimes I go up high stairs and hills on foot. Then I 
am ever cheerful, merry, and well contented, free from all 
troubles and troublesome thoughts, in whose places joy and 
peace have taken up their standing in my heart. I am not 
weary of life, which I pass with great delight. I confer often 
with worthy men excelling in wit, learning, behavior and other 
virtues. When I cannot have their company, I give myself to 
the reading of some learned book, and afterwards to writing; 
making it my aim in all things how I may help others to the 
furthest of my power. 

All these things I do at my ease, and at fit seasons, and in 
mine own houses; which, besides that they are in the fairest 
place of this learned city of Padua, are very beautiful and con- 
venient above most in this age, being so built by me according 
to the rules of architecture, that they are cool in summer and 
warm in winter. 

I enjoy also my gardens, and those divers, parted with rills 
of running water, which truly is very delightful. Some times 
of the year I enjoy ihe pleasure of the Euganean Hills, where 
also I have fountains and gardens, and a very convenient house. 
At other times I repair to a village of mine, seated in a valley ; 
which is therefore very pleasant, because many ways thither are 
so ordered that they all meet and end in a fair plot of ground, 
in the midst whereof is a church suitable to the condition of the 
place. This place is washed with the river of Brenta; on both 



288 OLD AGE. 

sides whereof are great and fruitful fields, well manured and 
adorned with many habitations. In former time it was not so, 
because the place was moorish and unhealthy, fitter for beasts 
than men. But I drained the ground, and made the air good; 
whereupon men flocked thither, and built houses with happy 
success. By this means the place is come to that perfection we 
now see it is ; so that I can truly say that I have both given God 
a temple and men to worship him in it, the memory whereof is 
exceeding delightful to me. 

Sometimes I ride to some of the neighbor cities, that I may 
enjoy the sight and communication of my friends, as also of 
excellent artificers in architecture, painting, stone- cutting, music, 
and husbandry, whereof in this age there is great plenty. I view 
their pieces, I compare them with those of antiquity, and ever I 
learn somewhat which is worthy of my knowledge. I survey 
palaces, gardens, and antiquities, public fabrics, temples, and 
fortifications ; neither omit I anything that may either teach or 
delight me. I am much pleased also in my travels with the 
beauty of situation. Neither is this my pleasure made less by 
the decaying dullness of my senses, which are all in their per- 
fect vigor, but especially my taste ; so that any simple fare is 
more savory to me now than heretofore, when I was given to 
disorder and all the delights that could be. 

To change my bed troubles me not; I sleep well and quietly 
anywhere, and my dreams are fair and pleasant. But this 
chiefly delights me, that my advice hath taken effect in the 
reducing of many rude and untoiled places in my country to cul- 
tivation and good husbandly. I was one of those that was 
deputed for the managing of that work, and abode in those fenny 
places two whole months in the heat of summer (which in Italy 
is very great), receiving not any hurt or inconvenience thereby, 
so great is the power and efficacy of that temperance which ever 
accompanied me. 

These are the delights and solaces of my old age, which is 
altogether to be preferred before others' youth; because that by 
temperance and the grace of God I feel not those perturbations 
of body and mind wherewith infinite both young and old are 
afflicted. 

Moreover, by this also in what estate I am may be dis- 



OLD AGE. 289 

covered, because at these years (viz., eighty- three), I have made 
a most pleasant comedy, full of honest wit and merriment; 
which kind of poems useth to be the child of youth, which it is 
most suits withal for variety and pleasantness, as a tragedy with 
old age, by reason of the sad events which it contains. And if 
a Greek poet of old was praised that at the age of seventy-three 
years he writ a tragedy, why should I be accounted less happy, 
or less myself, who being ten years older have made a comedy? 

Now, lest there should be any delight wanting to my old 
age, I daily behold a kind of immortality in the succession of 
my posterity. For when I come home I find eleven grandchil- 
dren of mine, all the sons of one father and mother, all in per- 
fect health; all as far as I can conjecture very apt and well 
given both for learning and behavior. I am delighted with their 
music and fashion, and I myself also sing often, because I have 
now a clearer voice than ever I had in my life. 

By which it is evident that the life which I live at this age 
is not a dead, dumpish and sour life, but cheerful, lively, and 
pleasant. Neither if I had my wish would I change age and 
constitution with them who follow their youthful appetites, 
although they be of a most strong temper ; because such are 
daily exposed to a thousand dangers and deaths, as daily expe- 
rience showeth, and I also, when I was a young man, too well 
found. I know how inconsiderate that age is, and, though sub- 
ject to death, yet continually afraid of it; for death to all young 
men is a terrible thing, as also to those that live in sin and fol- 
low their appetites; whereas I, by the experience of so many 
years, have learned to give way to reason, whence it seems to 
me not only a shameful thing to fear that which cannot be 
avoided; but also I hope, when I shall come to that point, I 
shall find no little comfort in the favor of Jesus Christ. Yet I 
am sure that my end is far from me ; for I know that (setting 
casualties aside) I shall not die but by a pure resolution; because 
that by the regularity of my life I have shut out death all other 
ways, and that is a fair and desirable death which nature brings 
by way of resolution." 

To ail, old and young alike, declining years bring home the 
glory of freedom. We are not the mere sports of events. Only 
our muscles must bear the slow burden of time. The soul 



290 OLD AGE. 

flourishes with greater vigor and seems more vital from the con- 
trast. We find that we depend on ourselves, not on food, raiment, 
or supple sinews. In viewing old age, we read in every fading 
power our heritage of the immortal strength of soul which 
never fades. We cannot regret our passing vigor of muscle. 
" I now desire not," says Cicero, " the strength of youth any 
more than when a young man I desired the strength of the hull 
or the elephant." Every time of life has its own powers, which 
will be burdensome at any age to the idle, vain, untrained. 
Says Emerson very excellently, " 'Tis certain that graver head- 
aches and heartaches are lulled once for all, as we come up 
with certain goals of time. The passions have answered their 
purpose; that slight but dread overweight, with which, in each 
instance, Nature secures the execution of her aim, drops off. To 
keep man in the planet, she impresses the terror of death. To 
perfect the commissariat, she implants in each a certain rapacity 
to get the supply, and a little oversupply, of his wants. To 
insure the existence of the race, she reinforces the sexual in- 
stinct, at the risk of disorder, grief, and pain. To secure 
strength, she plants cruel hunger and thirst, which so easily 
overdo their office, and invite disease. But these temporary 
stays and shifts for the protection of the young animal are shed 
as fast as they can be rej3laced by nobler resources. We live in 
youth amidst this rabble of passions, quite too tender, quite too 
hungry and irritable. Later, the interiors of mind and heart 
open, and supply grander motives. We learn the fatal compen- 
sations that wait on every act. Then, — one after another, — this 
riotous time-destroying crew disappear." 

The region and realm of old age is the soul. As the 
stoutest body must fail at last, and the oak of a thousand years 
yield its substance to the mould, lo! old age, whose strength is 
vigor garnered in the spirit, is the very crowning and flourishing 
time of life, the time that lifts us above time, and looks not 
around the earth but above the earth for the soul's true home 
and free conditions. " For the world, I count it not an inn, but 
an hospital, and not a place to live but to die in. The world 
that I regard is myself: it is the microcosm of my own frame 
that I cast mine eye on; for the other I use it but hke my globe 
and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look 



OLD AGE. 291 

upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do 
err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas' shoulders. The earth 
is a point, not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of 
that heavenly and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh 
that circumscribes me limits not my mind. That surface that 
tells the heavens it hath an end cannot persuade me I have any. 
I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Though the 
number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not 
my mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or 
little world, I find myself something more than the great. 
There is surely a piece of divinity in us ; something that was 
before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature 
tells me I am the image of God, as well as Scripture. He that 
understands not thus much hath not his introduction or first 
lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man."* 

11 Not an inn but a hospital, not a place to live in but a 
place to die in." The world is a place to work in, and the indus- 
try of our powers is life. But the writer means only physical 
life ; and truly we must own that on the earth dying is our only 
exceptional business. For we have the universe and eternity to 
work in, forevermore. Many think this casts a shade of sadness 
over old age, — it is so near that mystery, that voyage of dis- 
covery with no return. Men shrink from advancing years as 
they do from death. Yet when we think of it, what is there in 
the nearness of death to make old age unlovely? We may be 
shamed into confidence here by the calmness of Cicero, — Cl I am 
glad I have lived, since I so have lived that I think I was not 
born in vain, and I so depart from life as if from an inn, not 
from a home." He reminds us that we are not dispensers to 
ourselves of life and death and that no youth is sure of life till 
the evening; and he exclaims, " miserable old man, who, in 
so long a life has not discovered that death is not to be feared; 
for surely it is to be neglected if it totally extinguish the soul; 
it is even to be wished for if it lead the soul anywhere to enjoy 
life forever." As the aeons of the world's life, its thinking, its 
experience in spiritual things, the faith and life of noble pro- 
phetic souls, have brought immortality to light, whereby what 
was a dim vision, a trembling wish or fainting hope, has grown 

*Sir Thomas Browne. "Religio Medici." 



292 OLD AGE. 

to a rapture, a spiritual sight, a courage of philosophy, we 
should equal the serenity and surpass the joy of the studious 
Koman. And so we shall if we be faithful. Let life be born in 
us. As old age comes on apace, let devotion to the noblest and 
highest, the love of truth, goodness and beauty, aspiration 
seconded by serious effort and undying labor for perfection, 
freedom of thought and independence of form, — let these be 
yoked with swift-footed time, and life will be a chariot with 
winged steeds, taking a run on the earth and then launching into 
the heavens. To take good words again from Emerson, — 
"When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can 
well spare, — muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, 
and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which 
was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and, dropping 
off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and 
wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. 
I have heard, that, whenever the name of man is spoken, the 
doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves to his consti- 
tution. The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes 
to us from the other side. But the inference from the working 
of intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving skill, — at the end of life 
just ready to be born, — affirms the inspirations of affection and 
of the moral sentiment." 

As I began with the beauty of old age, its silent eloquence, 
so in ending I will remind you of the beauty of the death which 
nature has prepared for old age if her laws be followed and the 
course of life be run well. There is a deep truth in the old 
theological fable that death in the world is the effect of sin. But 
for disobedience, we never should see death. I am persuaded 
that if the laws of the body were obeyed devoutly, death would 
come with hand as gentle as a mother's, as tenderly as the leaf 
or the infant mind unfolds, and give no sign. I know of noth- 
ing more beautiful than such a death, a life breathed gently out 
without fear, without break, into the heavens whose silver beam 
long has rested on the earthly tabernacle. Of such we cannot 
say that they have gone to another life. Life is one. When 
the soul thus gloriously and naturally takes wing, we stand 
transported with the beauty of the departure, with the soft 



OLD AGE. 293 

splendor of the setting sun, with the delicacy of nature that 
steals us away without partings. Saith an old poet, 

" We're all deluded vainly searching ways 
To make us happy by the length of days ; 
For cunningly, to make us love this breath, 
The gods conceal the happiness of death." 

" And so," says Cicero, " young men appear to me to die in 
such manner as when the power of a flame is extinguished with 
a deluge of water; but old men as when a fire burns out spon- 
taneously, put out by no violence. And, as apples, if unripe, 
are torn forcibly from the tree, if mature and mellow, fall of 
themselves, so violence wrests life from the young, ripeness 
steals it from the old; which to me indeed appears so joyful, 
that the nearer I come to death, the more I seem as if looking 
on the shore and about to come into port from a long voyage." 



APPENDIX 

OF AFTER- THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

Page 51. Touching the works of God in nature and the 
works of man, I was pleased to meet the following in Sidney's 
u Defense of Poesie:" " Neither let it he deemed too saucy a com- 
parison to halance the highest point of man's wit with the effi- 
cacy of nature, hut rather give right honor to the heavenly 
Maker of that maker, who having made man to his own likeness, 
set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature ; 
which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry; when with 
the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth surpassing 
her doings." 



Page 80. The dignity and the need of thought in all public 
teaching or discoursing ought to be dwelt on insistantly. For 
equally the speaker should be ashamed to open a chute of trifling 
entertainment, like damaged grain for the.undistinguishing ap- 
petite of swine, and the hearer should be resentful of such food, 
especially if he be called to it as a feast. A shrewd friend said 
to me, l< There is but one thing a man can do more unpopular 
than to think, which is, to require others to think." I would believe 
willingly that he was mistaken; for to seek to be commended 
by means of folly, slightness, and the asking of no mental effort 
from any one, is contemptible, and also a contempt of the people. 
Also it is thievish, if one take high and noble ground touching 
the giving of goods for money, one value for another. For has 
a man a right to sell poor goods at a fine price, or to sell them 
at all if he can give better, simply because the people have a 



296 APPENDIX. 

bad and ignorant wish for them? Nobler is the view of a friend 
of mine who is an actor: he wishes to leave his art (which as a 
great art, if it be strained up to its greatness, he admires) because, 
as he says, the plays presented are not worth the people's 
money, and the fraud is no less because the buyers are blind in 
their taste instead of in their eyes. 

As to the manliness and robustness of thought, both in the 
speaker and in the hearer, and plain dignity and credit that it 
is, I noted, after preaching my sermon, these lines in Emerson's 
" Woodnotes," under the similitude of hill- climbing: 

" Thee of thy faith who hath bereft, 
' And torn the ensigns from thy brow, 

And sunk the immortal eye so low? 
Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender, 
Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender 
For royal man ; — they thee confess 
An exile from the wilderness, — 
The hills where health with health agrees, 
And the wise soul expels disease," 



Page 89. The Eiches of Life is such that in respect of them 
there is no middle estate. "We are wealthy or we are beggars — as 
says an old proverb of Heaven and Hell, " Hell is wherever 
Heaven is not." A friend gives me the following words from Leigh 
Hunt: "The sunshine floods the sky and ocean, and yet nurses 
the baby buds of roses on the wall. So we would fain open the 
largest and the very best source of pleasure, the noblest that ex- 
pands above us into the heavens and the most familiar that 
catches our glance in the homestead. * * * Man has not 
yet learned to enjoy the world he lives 4 in; no, not the hundred- 
thousand-millionth part of it ; and we would fain help him to 
render it of still greater joy. * * * We would make adversity 
hopeful, prosperity sympathetic; and all to be better, kinder, richer 
and happier. * * * We would say to every one, ' You can 
surely diminish pain and increase pleasure ; the secret is to know 
more and to know that there is more to love.' * * * Shake- 
speare speaks of a man who was incapable of his own distress. 
A man may be poor, even struggling, but not unhappy." 



APPENDIX. 297 

Page 110. That pessimism and despair are features of see- 
ing "and not of the seen, Emerson says thus, in " Woodnotes:" 

" Hark in.thy ear I will tell trie sign, 
By which thy heart thou rnayst divine. 
When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff, 
Or see the wide shore from thy skiff, 
To thee the horizon shall express 
But emptiness on emptiness ; . 
There lives no man of Nature's worth 
In the circle of the earth ; 
And to thine eye the vast skies fall 
Dire and satirical, 
On clucking hens and prating fools, 
On thieves, on drudges and on dolls. 
And thou shalt say to the Most High, 
' Godhead, all this astronomy, 
And fate and practice and invention, 
Strong art and beautiful pretension, 
This radiant pomp of sun and star, 
Throes that were, and worlds that are, 
Behold, were in vain and in vain ; 
# # # 

And nature has miscarried wholly 
Into failure, into folly. 
Alas ! thine is the bankruptcy, 
Blessed Nature so to see." 



Page 115. In Joseph Henry Allen's "Christian History, 
The Second Period," there is a very noble and instructive chap- 
ter on "Chivalry," To analyze it briefly: The position of 
woman is very much higher and more influential in the modern 
world than in the ancient. The causes commonly assigned for 
this improvement are Christianity and the characteristic Teu- 
tonic respect for women. Both these have weight; but they are 
not enough, for the church was ascetic and anti-social, and the 
barbarian feudalism was essentially cruel. The historical influ- 
ences which brought about the ascendency of woman were, 

the general war-state and the hunting excursions of feudalism, 
which left women alone and responsible at home ; the foreign 
wars, so constant and long, which drained away the men and 
left women in domestic government and power ; especially the 
crusades; the participation of women in the crusading ardor, 
which gave them consideration and dignity; the aristocratic 
pride of family, the haughtiness of feudal rank; the autonomy 
of each petty baron, which brought the women of the family 
close to local law and sovereignty. Under these conditions, a 



298 APPENDIX. 

totally new phase of human society arose, namely 'chivalry. 
This was hoth religious and romantic. From it has come mod- 
ern sentiment and tenderness of manners. 

" The great wars of this century," says Mr. Allen, " the 
rude conflicts of opinion, the democratic drift, all tend to make 
men impatient of the formal courtesies of an earlier time. This 
can not be helped. It need not, perhaps, he regretted. But in the 
change it may he feared that women have lost more than they are 
aware. It is a sad descent, after all, from ' Waverly ' to ' Vanity 
Fair.' The spirit of anti-chivalry which shines in brilliant 
satires on ' the woman of the period ' is an ill exchange for the 
romance it threatens to displace. * * * If we remember what 
was the rude and barbarous origin of society, and then think of 
what it is to-day, we are fairly amazed at the miracle which has 
been wrought to make the strong and haughty submissive, and 
to put the weak in the place of authority and power. It is 
chivalry that has wrought this fine miracle for us; and what is 
left us of the formal courtesies which are the defences of that au- 
thority, is our inheritance from the days of chivalry. It is our 
recognition of a sphere within which women can be as they 
were then, sovereign and paramount, That sphere, it is true, 
is conventional and strictly limited; but no possible or imagin- 
ary widening out of the political horizon could compensate 
the loss of it. I can imagine that an intelligent woman should 
not understand, (as, indeed, how can she?) or believe in the 
knightly homage which every generous-minded man is eager to 
pay her in what we may call the chivalrous period of his life, — 
say from eighteen to eighty. But understanding that such a 
sentiment is possible, I can not imagine that she would consent 
to break the secret charm, the invisible spell, which still gives 
her power to claim it." 

This is fine and true. When woman is regarded with 
chivalrous sentiment and treated with actual tender care, she has her 
true place. But she must give a lovely requital ; for this is an 
age of fact. She must take more pains than were required of 
her in the romantic period to be what a generous man dreams of 
her. Perhaps this necessity may be conceived as the descent and 
modern form of the chivalric extravagant homage to beauty and 
romantic rhapsody over it; charms of feature, color and shape 



APPENDIX. 299 

being transferred to the virtue of spiritual loveliness, — that 
paramount " beautifier of face, form and complexion," which, as 
Emerson says, " is the wish to scatter happiness and not pain 
about us." Therefore, I say, let women be quick with lovely 
requitals, and believe, if they cannot understand, that sweet 
thanks may go very far with a man's soul. Let her not forget. 
Nevertheless, if a woman forget her grace, more wanting still is 
the man with whom that grace counts little. 



Page 120. Is there a more sure, more glorious, more di- 
vinity-revealing truth of the human soul than this, that we gain 
great power to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see! 

" With truth and purity go other gifts ! 
All gifts come clustering to that." 

Browning. 

" The best men ever prove the wisest too ; 
Something instinctive guides them still aright." 

Browning. 

" Sincerity is the way of Heaven. The. attainment of sin- 
cerity is the way .of men. He who possesses sincerity is he who 
without an effort hits what is right, and apprehends without 
the exercise of thought." From the Confucian writing called 
" The Doctrine ofVe Mean." 



Page 135. I have not taken notice of the disputed genu- 
ineness of some of the epistles ascribed to Paul; because 
whether actually written by the great Apostle or not, it is plain 
they are Pauline in principles, thought,, value, and represent one 
and the same movement in the early church. The question of 
authorship has interest for those who have time and learning 
for it; but I am contented with the spiritual unity of these great 
writings. 



Page 153. " There may be even now arising in us a con- 
sciousness higher than anything we at present know, as conscious- 



300 APPENDIX. 

ness, by wliicli we may later know, what we now grasp after.' I 
believe that there is at this moment alive and steadily growing 
in the thoughtful mind of the world, a concept of God, of the In- 
finite Presence, which is ere long to rise to clear consciousness, 
to assured knowledge. 

The One that transcends both the visible and conceptual, 
that neither can be seen by the eye, nor framed in the imagin- 
ation, formless, limitless, eternal, for which language has no 
word and thought no conception, which is and is alone, which 
shines for us in the grand symbols of the ideal, the everlasting 
verities of reason, — shall be the sole object of worship, of ador- 
ation, of love, as seen alive and aglow with the incarnate pres- 
ence of these verities. Beauty that is beyond the form, Truth 
that is but hinted in the expression, the world and all that is 
therein, becomes hallowed, divine; nature, man, the bursting, 
beaming life, the speaking presences we call souls, the compan- 
ions, the dear ones of our homes, rise before us sacred, clothed 
in a solemn majesty, aud a depth of meaning that fills with un- 
named awe." Charles D. B. Mills. 

" Conscious Law is King of Kings. 
As the bee through the garden ranges, 
From -world to world the Godhead changes ; 
As the sheep go feeding in the waste, 
From form to form He rnaketh haste ; 
This vault which glows immense with light 
Is the inn where he lodges for a night. 

Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, 

He hides in pure transparency ; 

Thou askest in fountains and in fires, 

He is the essence that inquires. 

He is the axis of the star ; 

He is the sparkle of the spar ; 

He is the heart of every creature ; 

He is the meaning of each feature ; 

And his mind is the sky. 

Than all it holds more deep, more high." 

Emerson. 

Compare the beautiful story and poetical imagery in 
1 Kings xix. 



Page 185. From a sermon by Heber Newton, on All 
Saints' Day, I take the following : 

«' The Church, during the Christian year, has duly com- 



APPENDIX. 301 

meinorated the most illustrious of her saints, and now, at the . 
close of the year, she gathers into one gracious festival men's 
memories of all the saints of every age and race and name and 
faith — ' the blessed company of faithful people.' No names are 
individualized, for the very reason that this festival bids us 
cherish in reverent memory this vast host who have lived godly 
and righteously and soberly in this world, but who have made 
no name for themselves. It is the feast of the every day saints. 
It pronounces the canonization of that vast host of imperfect 
men and women who, assailed by temptations and battling 
against evil impulses within, have none the less striven to be 
good fathers and mothers, faithful husbands aud wives, loyal 
sons and daughters, true brothers and sisters, honorable busi- 
ness men and professional men, conscientious artisans and la- 
borers. To-day we thank God for the average man, the man of 
common clay, who has, however, tried to do his humble duty in 
obscure positions and amid prosaic surroundings. We think 
not now of the illustrious of earth, but of the forgotten heroes of 
every-day life, the heroes of the home and the shop. 

* * * 

Whenever I am tempted to pessimism concerning human 
nature, I raise my eyes and turn them in a bird's-eye view over 
the length and breadth of the land, and seem to see, in its 
myriad little villages, this stuff of the average saint, weaving the 
warp and woof our social fabric and making it strong and clean 
and sound. 

* # * 

It is my privilege to know many noble men and gracious 
women, whose lives are full of inspiration to me. I think I can 
honestly say, however, that one of the most speaking sermons that 
has ever been preached to me from daily life is repeated over and 
over again — such sermons can not be repeated too often — as I 
come in contact with a plain littte body, whom no one would 
expect from her appearance to be a heroine and who never 
poses as such in her own consciousness. Poor, obscure, unedu- 
cated, her life is full of the tragedy of unrealized possibilities 
and disappointed hopes. Of a good stock, from one of the 
noblest races of the old World, it was her fortune in early life 



302 APPENDIX. 

to ally herself with a man utterly and hopelessly inferior to her. 
Such an alliance generally results in one way. It is hut rarely 
that the higher lifts the lower nature. It is too common that the 
lower drags down the higher nature. Children have been born 
rapidly into this family. The little mother's hands have been 
full all her life in the care of them. The stolid brute of a hus- 
band has felt his own responsibility discharged in bringing in 
his weekly wages — entirely inadequate to the support of his 
children whom he has recklessly brought into the world. 
Through the wearing years of infancy and early childhood, this 
large family has been brought up as best the little mother 
could — the insufficient income ever eked out by her ready hands 
and her willing heart. As the children have grown up, with 
that pathos which life so often exhibits, it has been the coarse 
father-nature which has come out in them, rather than the fine 
mother-nature. One after another these children have disap- 
pointed the mother's heart, and still she has toiled on; takiug 
them back into her family, as they have married and added 
grand-children to her cares; filling up the gaps in their scanty 
incomes, tiding them over hard places, providing for them when 
out of work, being all and in all to them. Needless it is to say 
that such a life has been one of unremitting toil, of the very slav- 
ery of drudgedom. The bitterest element in the cup that she 
has had to drink has not, however, been the mere toil of these 
years, but it has been that no sweetening element of genuine love 
has been added. What can not the wife and the mother do in 
the way of unwearied toil and of utter self-sacrifice when repaid 
with love? But, in this wretched home the words and tones of 
love are absent, and deeds and services of patient self-denying 
devotion are repaid with curses, if not with blows. Her eyes 
are undimmed now by any glamor. She knows what her hus- 
band is, and what are her sons. She sighs when she speaks' of 
them, and then smiles a smile of pity, and goes back to the 
home, with its living martyrdom. And in twenty years we 
have not heard from that little woman one murmuring against 
Providence, one repining over her lot. She rarely goes to 
church — she has no time or strength for that. She makes 
no public profession, as some of our good Christians would say, 
of religion. She probably has a very short creed. But if 



APPENDIX. 303 

ever there was an every-day saint in the world, doing faith- 
fully the duties that came to her, without asking reward or 
recompense, this little tenement-house mother is that every-day 
saint. Of such is the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is be- 
cause there are hosts of men and women who, in some measure, 
are living such homely heroisms, that our earth is kept sweet 
and clean and capable of salvation." 

The preacher took this heroic life from the comer where 
God wrought in it, and handed it to his congregation. From 
him I receive it and hand it on to whatsoever reader may enter- 
tain these words, I can not guess where or when. So goes faith- 
fulness, handed from one to another in God's Providence ; for 
nothing can be lost, nor can any one conceive how widely a 
good thing travels or what work it does before it comes to 
heaven. 

" Heir of all the ages, I, — 
Lo, I am no longer poor I" 



Page 260. A friend sends to me the following poem, given 
to her by a loving sister whose brother, a manly soldier killed in 
the civil war, translated it from the German; but from what 
poet or whether from an unnamed folk- singer, I know not: 

" The young child Jesus had a garden 

Full of roses rare and red ; 
And thrice a day he watered them 

To make a garland for his head. 

And when the roses were full blown, 

He led the Jewish children there ; 
And each one plucked himself a rose, 

Until they left the garden bare. 

''And now how will you make your wreath, 

For not a rose your path adorns? ' 
' But 3-0U forget,' he answered them, 

' That you have left me all the thorns.' 

He took the thorns and made a wreath, 

And placed it on his shining head ; 
And where the*roses should have been 

Were drops of blood instead." 



MR. BLAKE'S BOOKS. 

Essays, Cloth, $1.00 

Poems, Cloth, 1.00 

Legends from Story-Land, Half-cloth, .. .. .. .. 1.00 

Manual Training in Education, .. .. .. .. .. .25 






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